PM Modi delivers poll message and a googly to Congress party

NEW DELHI: PM Modi’s visit to the Lal Bahadur Shastri memorial at Ramnagar in Varanasi was an election-eve gesture, as well as a googly aimed at the Congress. Modi is the second serving PM to visit this modest memorial, the first being Shastri during his promising yet short-lived premiership.

Shastri had also visited his home after India won the 1965 war against Pakistan under his leadership. The PM’s visit may be a gesture to the Kayastha community to which Shastri belonged to. Ramnagar is part of the Varanasi Cantonment seat, long held by a BJP MLA from the community, whose son is pitted against a Congress candidate from the community.

Commenting on Modi’s visit, Shastri’s son, Anil Shastri, special CWC invitee, told ET: “The PM visiting the Shastri memorial at Ramnagar is a welcome gesture. Yet, the timing of the visit at the peak of campaign in Varanasi is politically suspect.

Modiji had never visited the spot in the last three years, even though it falls in his parliamentary seat. Since Modiji has been invoking Shastriji’s name during some of his past speeches as PM, I am also disappointed his government is yet to dedicate any government schemes and projects in the name of Shastriji.”

Meanwhile, Shastri’s another son Sunil who is with BJP, said: “It was an emotional moment for me to see the kind of reception Modi got. It was similar to the reception my father received when he came home after becoming the PM.”

Though Shastri was born in his father’s rented house in Mughalsarai, his mother shifted to this maternal home when he was a year old, after he lost his father. Unlike Anand Bhavan, the majestic ancestral home of Nehru in Allahabad, Shastri’s Ramnagar home is a hut, where the family lived in abject poverty. Interestingly, Shastri’s politicalkarmabhumiwasAllahabad, where he was mentored by Nehru.

It was the Mulayam Singh government that acquired the Ramnagar home, by paying Rs 42 lakh to a distant relative of Shastri, but the work on the memorial and museum has hardly progressed. Eight months ago, culture minister Mahesh Sharma said the Centre would take over the memorial but that too has not made much progress.

However, the national Lal Bahadur Shastri Memorial at 1, Motilal Nehru Marg in Delhi was inaugurated by Manmohan Singh in 2005, after he fast-tracked the project initiated by his predecessor AB Vajpayee. With Modi’s visit, many are bound to track the progress of the project in months to come.