JAN SANGH VETERAN’S CENTENARY CELEBRATIONS TO BEGIN IN 2016

NEW DELHI: The government is planning to celebrate the birth centenary year of Jan Sangh leader Deendayal Upadhyaya from September 25, 2016 and the culture ministry will oversee the whole event. A national committee under the chairmanship of the Prime Minister will also be formed in this regard.

“We’ll celebrate the birth centenary year of Deendayalji from September 25 next year and the planning for the same would begin this year itself. We have had the first meeting in this regard and few proposals have been discussed. However, the final plan and programmes will be known after some more deliberations,” culture minister Mahesh Sharma said.

According to sources, among the different ideas proposed, a research university in the late leader’s name is also doing the rounds. The university could focus on either spirituality or politics. A museum is also planned at his native village. There are also plans to revamp the libraries at the district level by including works by Deendayal.

BJP vice-president Prabhat Jha, who is also a part of the ‘planning team’, told HT: “We plan to bring Deendayalji personality to the public. Each party has an ideologue. We are all inspired by his ideologies. His economic theory was different in which the person at the lowest rung of the ladder was the central aspect. I have had discussions with the Madhya Pradesh chief minister and he has shown interest to start a research institute on Deendayalji’s name”.

PROPOSED PLANS INCLUDE THE SETTING UP OF A UNIVERSITY IN UPADHYAYA’S NAME — WITH A FOCUS ON SPIRITUALITY OR POLITICS