Union Culture Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat told the Lok Sabha on Monday that “action can be taken” on the demand that certain letters of former prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru that were allegedly taken in 2008 by Sonia Gandhi should be returned to the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library (NMML).
Speaking during Question Hour in the Lower House, BJP MP and BJP national spokesperson Sambit Patra said that Sonia Gandhi took the letters in 2008 as she knew that the documents would be digitised in 2010. In response, Shekhawat said he had noted the suggestion and that action can be taken.
Patra said, on May 5, 2008, MV Rajan took approval from the museum director and sent 51 cartons of historical documents of Nehru’s correspondence with Edwina Mountbatten, JP Narayan, Albert Einstein and others to Sonia Gandhi. He said that the museum committee decided to take legal opinion also as “it was part of the treasure of India which was donated to it in 1971.”
He said the issue had been raised during the annual general body meeting of the Prime Minister’s Museum and Library, which is the successor to the NMML, earlier this year. Patra said the records were important to understand the history of India and appealed to the culture ministry to investigate the matter and bring back the records to the museum.
Taking a dig at Congress, Patra said, “The letters are national heritage and can not be claimed by saying that they were written by someone’s grandfather is not correct.”
Addressing a press conference at the BJP headquarters later, Patra termed the letters as “historical heritage” and not the property of any family. “What was there in the letters that the first family felt should not be made public,” Patra asked.
He raised concern as to what was in these correspondence that Gandhi family felt they should not be made public. He lambasted Gandhi family by saying that one of the aspects is also the sense of entitlement under which the first family thinks that it was their property.