Today, the public cremation site in Delhi, Nigambodh Ghat, will host the final ceremonies of former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh with full state honours. Later today, a number of lawmakers are scheduled to attend the funeral. The final ceremonies for Dr. Manmohan Singh will take place at approximately 11:45 a.m. today. The former prime minister’s body has been transported to the national capital’s Congress offices.
In observance of Dr. Singh, the Centre has proclaimed a seven-day nationwide state of mourning. India’s national flag will be at half-mast during this time. Additionally, the Congress said that all of the party’s official events, including the Foundation Day celebration, would be suspended for the following seven days and reopened on January 3.
The Centre and Congress are at odds on how much land should be set aside for Dr. Singh’s memorial. The Congress objected to the choice of Nigambodh Ghat for the last rites rather than a site for a monument dedicated to him. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge discussed the potential of erecting a memorial for Dr. Singh at the location of the funeral rites. “Apropos our telephonic conversation this morning, wherein I made a request to hold Dr Manmohan Singh’s last rites, which will take place tomorrow i.e. 28th December 2024, at his final resting place that would be a sacrosanct venue for a memorial of the great son of India. This is in keeping with such tradition of having memorials of statesmen and former prime ministers at the very place of their funerals,” Mr Kharge wrote in a letter on Friday.
But BJP spokesman CR Kesavan retaliated on the Congress, describing the party’s actions as “ironic”. “It is indeed ironic that a Congress President is writing to PM Narendra Modi ji about traditions and the funeral place becoming the sacrosanct venue for a memorial. One should remind Kharge ji how the Congress-led UPA government never built a memorial in Delhi for former PM Narasimha Rao ji, who passed away in 2004,” he said.
The Centre also informed Mr. Kharge and Dr. Singh’s family that it would set aside a spot for Dr. Singh’s memorial. However, it said that in the meantime, cremation and other formalities can take place because a “trust has to be formed and space has to be allocated”.
The late President Pranab Mukherjee’s daughter, Sharmistha Mukherjee, chastised Mr. Kharge for the party’s insistence on a separate memorial for the former prime minister. She said in a statement on X that the Congress leadership did not even bother to call a Congress Working Committee (CWC) meeting to offer condolences when her father and the former Indian President passed away in August 2020. She claims that a top Congress leader informed her that Indian presidents do not receive memorial services.
At the age of 92, Manmohan Singh passed away on Thursday night due to age-related medical issues. He had been in poor health for the last few months. Known as the ‘architect of India’s economic reforms’, Dr Singh was the PM for two terms in the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government from 2004 to 2014.
Dr. Singh was born in 1932 and attended the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom, where he graduated with a First Class Honours degree in Economics in 1957. He also received a degree in Economics from Nuffield College at Oxford University. In 1991, Dr. Singh was elected to the Rajya Sabha and served as the Leader of the Opposition from 1998 to 2004. In 1987, he received India’s second-highest civilian honour, the Padma Vibhushan. Condolences have been sent to Dr. Singh’s passing by a number of world leaders, including French President Emmanuel Macron, former Prime Minister Stephen Harper of Canada, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and Malaysian PM Anwar Ibrahim.
