No one imagined that former prime minister Dr Manmohan Singh will received such a graceful mourning after his death from all quarters in the country and also from the people at large, though always Prime Minister Narendra Modi and also BJP tried to project him as a `very week leader’, only performed under shadow of Sonia Gandhi as Prime Minister.
He may be known as an economist, but surprisingly several recalled him as a master political strategist and how he succeeded in getting ahead with the Indo- US Nuclear Deal, though most of his own party top leaders, including Sonia Gandhi were opposed to it and the Left threatened to withdraw support to the government.
But at the time of funeral both the BJP-headed central government and the Congress party resorted to `dirty politics’ competing with each other, trying to win the perception battle in paying kudos to the former Prime Minister.
However, how Singh’s family kept a dignified distance from those `dirty politics’ and behaved very gracefully has attracted every one. They practically kept away from the debate on whether Nigambodh Ghat was a suitable venue for the funeral and which space should be allocated for Singh’s memorial?
It may be recalled that there was no love lost between Singh and the BJP in his lifetime. Similarly, the former PM was deeply hurt when Rahul Gandhi publicly humiliated him by terming as “complete nonsense” his government’s Ordinance to save convicted legislators from immediate disqualification.
Rahul’s televised rebuke came hours before Singh was to meet then US President Barack Obama in WashingtonDC in 2013. Some family members wanted Singh to resign immediately. Singh refrained, because he reasoned that doing so would reflect poorly on the country as he was abroad.
The real reason for the Congress’s ire during the Nigambodh Ghat ceremony was that the media, except the government- controlled Doordarshan, was kept out of the ghat. Consequently, Prime Minister Modi and his entourage hogged the limelight and not Rahul.
Ironically, the Congress missed a golden opportunity to claim proprietorship of Singh’s legacy by banning the media during the hours his body was kept in state at the AICC headquarters.
Incidentally, after the ashes were collected from the funeral pyre, the Singh family had a small, private religious ceremony at Gurdwara Rakab Ganj, but Rahul could not attend as he had already flown off to Vietnam.