Taking a far-sighted political decision, the Union cabinet in a meeting chaired by prime minister Narendra Modi on Saturday, decided taking over the events to mark the birth and death anniversaries of Mahatma Gandhi. Until now these were organised by the Rajghat Samadhi Committee constituted by an Act in 1951 that has 12 members with mayor of Delhi being the ex-officio.
As far as all the other national leaders and heroes are concerned, the functions related to them can be organised by trusts, family members, political parties and their supporters and private committees.
Incidentally, the Modi government did not apply the same yardstick to Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, who was being promoted as a symbol of national unity by the BJP even before coming to power.
But interestingly, Modi, despite attacking India's first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru during his electoral campaigns has reconstituted the national committee, with him as its chairman, to commemorate Nehru's 125th birth anniversary that falls on November 14.
The other members, besides five key cabinet ministers, include an interesting mix of leaders from opposition parties like Ghulam Nabi Azad and Mallikarjun Kharge, Karan Singh from Congress and Ram Naresh Yadav from SP and senior academicians and journalists cutting across ideologies.
In a related decision the Union cabinet also decided not to make any government bungalow available for a memorial of any leader of any political party.
"With regard to the allotment of bungalows for memorials and the management of samadhis of our departed national leaders, henceforth no bungalow shall be made available for memorial for any person," Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said after the Cabinet meeting.
The decision comes against the backdrop of huge protests by Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) supporters in the capital and in nearby Baghpat against orders to RLD chief Ajit Singh's to vacate his government allotted bungalow and amid demands that it should be converted into a memorial for late Prime Minister Choudhary Charan Singh.
After the former PM passed away, the bungalow was allocated to Ajit Singh once he became a Minister in the UPA government. But when he lost last election and asked to vacate, he along with his supporters demanded to convert this into memorial as his father spent good numbers of years there. However, the Government rejected the demand and finally Singh had to vacate it.
Several bungalows in Central Delhi, also referred as Lutyans Zone, have been converted into memorials such as for Lal Bahadur Shastri, Babu Jagjeevan Ram, and for Indira Gandhi. As there are demands for many more, the government feels that such a trend will reduce the number of bungalows to be allocated to central ministers, judges, and defence forces' chiefs and important officials. Earlier this year, there was a controversy over conversion of the then Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar's official residence into a memorial in the memory of her father and former Deputy Prime Minister Jagjivan Ram.
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