TRS, Congress in tussle to claim legacy of ex-PM Narasimha Rao

TO EMBARRASS HIS POLITICAL RIVAL, KCR CLAIMED THAT RAO DID NOT GET HIS DUE IN THE CONGRESS AND SAID HE WOULD SOON MEET PM MODI TO SEEK A BHARAT RATNA FOR THE LATE LEADER

NEW DELHI: Telangana’s ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) government kicked off year-long centenary celebrations of former Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao with a publicity blitz even as the local unit of the Congress, Rao’s own party, said it too would celebrate his centenary (his hundredth birthday is on June 28, 2021) , as competitive politics saw the two parties trying to outdo each other in their bid to claim the political legacy of the late leader.

TRS supremo and Telangana chief minister K Chandrashekhar Rao, popularly known as KCR, made a strong pitch for conferring Bharat Ratna, the highest civilian award, on Rao and placed him at par with the country’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru.

At a function in Hyderabad, KCR paid tributes to Rao on his 99th birth anniversary and called him the “proud son of Telangana” while recalling his contributions to the country when it was passing through a critical phase during his tenure as PM 1991-96, including ushering in bold economic reforms.

KCR claimed that Rao did not get the due respect in the Congress and said he would soon meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi to seek Bharat Ratna for the late leader.

“While Jawaharlal Nehru ji was among the architects of modern India, it was PV Narasimha Rao who initiated economic reforms .... created a global India. There is no doubt about it. He was in the same league as Nehru. PV was a personality who was on par with Nehru,” he said.

In full page advertisements in national and regional newspapers published on Sunday, the state government also described Rao as ‘Telangana’s son… India’s Pride’.

Vice President M Venkaiah

Naidu and Prime Minister Modi also paid tributes to Rao. In his monthly ‘Mann ki Baat’ radio broadcast, Modi said Rao led the country through a “critical phase”.

It is well known that Rao shared an uneasy relationship with the Nehru-Gandhi family and the Congress rarely mentions the former Prime Minister in any of its programmes.

A powerful section in the Congress blames Rao for his political misjudgment of the Ayodhya issue and his failure to stop the demolition of Babri Masjid on December 6, 1992 when he was the Prime Minister.

While former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who held the finance portfolio in the Rao government from 1991 and 1996, has always paid glowing tributes to the late leader, others in the party have usually been more reticent about this.

That seems to have changed this year. Several Congress leaders, including Rahul Gandhi and P Chidambaram, paid tribute to Rao on Sunday.

In a Facebook post, Gandhi wrote: “My tribute to former Congress President and Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao Ji on his birth anniversary.”