Nearly two months after the Congress announced that the party would organise its own programmes to celebrate Nehru’s 125 birth anniversary on November 14, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday reconstituted a government committee for the same purpose.
Modi named himself as its chairman but no member of the Nehru-Gandhi family found place on the committee. Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who had headed the earlier committee constituted by the UPA government, was also kept out.
The new panel is slated to hold its first meeting after Diwali on October 23 to chalk out the government’s calendar of events.
Leaving it too late
The Congress chose to gloss over the composition of the committee. But it did take a dig at the ruling alliance for the delay in announcing the panel. “If the government was really serious about celebrating Nehru’s birth anniversary in a manner befitting his stature, it would have set up this committee much earlier,” Ajay Maken, chairman of the Congress party’s communication department, told Scroll.in. Nehru’s birth anniversary, he pointed out, is on November 14 and there is hardly any time hardly any to organise a proper programme.
Congress members on the government panel are Mallikarjun Kharge and Ghulam Nabi Azad (leaders of the Congress legislative party in the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha) and party veteran Karan Singh. Senior journalist and close friend of the Gandhi family Suman Dubey has also found a place in the government committee.
Besides a host of academics , former bureaucrats and media persons , senior ministers Rajnath Singh, Sushma Swaraj, Arun Jaitley, Smriti Irani, Prakash Javadekar and Shripad Yesso Naik have been appointed as ex-offico members of the committee.
The announcement of the reconstituted committee comes two weeks after Modi invoked the names of Nehru and Indira Gandhi while launching his Swacch Bharat campaign.
The move clearly unsettled the Congress as the party had earlier criticised Modi for ignoring the country’s first prime minister in his Independence Day speech and distorting history by pitting Nehru against his Congress colleague,Sardar Patel.
Congress committee
Since it was uncertain if the Modi government would actually mark Nehru's anniversarty, the Congress in August established its own committee, headed by Congress president Sonia Gandhi, to plan a series of events to highlight the first prime minister's achievements.
Moreover, the Congress believes it has first claim over Nehru’s legacy and wants to use this occasion to highlight the leader's secular ideology as a weapon against the Bharatiya Janata Party's Hindutava roots.
Buy it now appears that there will be parallel programmes by the NDA government and Congress.
According to former minister Anand Sharma, a member of the Sonia Gandhi-headed committee, the Congress programme will be launched on November 14 when party members across the country will take a pledge to uphold Nehru’s ideals.
"We plan to hold a series of programmes in universities to revive interest in Nehruvian thought among the youth, “ Sharma said. An international conference is also on the cards.
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Modi named himself as its chairman but no member of the Nehru-Gandhi family found place on the committee. Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who had headed the earlier committee constituted by the UPA government, was also kept out.
The new panel is slated to hold its first meeting after Diwali on October 23 to chalk out the government’s calendar of events.
Leaving it too late
The Congress chose to gloss over the composition of the committee. But it did take a dig at the ruling alliance for the delay in announcing the panel. “If the government was really serious about celebrating Nehru’s birth anniversary in a manner befitting his stature, it would have set up this committee much earlier,” Ajay Maken, chairman of the Congress party’s communication department, told Scroll.in. Nehru’s birth anniversary, he pointed out, is on November 14 and there is hardly any time hardly any to organise a proper programme.
Congress members on the government panel are Mallikarjun Kharge and Ghulam Nabi Azad (leaders of the Congress legislative party in the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha) and party veteran Karan Singh. Senior journalist and close friend of the Gandhi family Suman Dubey has also found a place in the government committee.
Besides a host of academics , former bureaucrats and media persons , senior ministers Rajnath Singh, Sushma Swaraj, Arun Jaitley, Smriti Irani, Prakash Javadekar and Shripad Yesso Naik have been appointed as ex-offico members of the committee.
The announcement of the reconstituted committee comes two weeks after Modi invoked the names of Nehru and Indira Gandhi while launching his Swacch Bharat campaign.
The move clearly unsettled the Congress as the party had earlier criticised Modi for ignoring the country’s first prime minister in his Independence Day speech and distorting history by pitting Nehru against his Congress colleague,Sardar Patel.
Congress committee
Since it was uncertain if the Modi government would actually mark Nehru's anniversarty, the Congress in August established its own committee, headed by Congress president Sonia Gandhi, to plan a series of events to highlight the first prime minister's achievements.
Moreover, the Congress believes it has first claim over Nehru’s legacy and wants to use this occasion to highlight the leader's secular ideology as a weapon against the Bharatiya Janata Party's Hindutava roots.
Buy it now appears that there will be parallel programmes by the NDA government and Congress.
According to former minister Anand Sharma, a member of the Sonia Gandhi-headed committee, the Congress programme will be launched on November 14 when party members across the country will take a pledge to uphold Nehru’s ideals.
"We plan to hold a series of programmes in universities to revive interest in Nehruvian thought among the youth, “ Sharma said. An international conference is also on the cards.
