Nehru Memorial Museum & Library to be renamed, Cong slams Centre

New Delhi: Congress Party has slammed the Centre’s decision to rename the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library as the Prime Ministers Museum and Society, on Friday.

The Nehru Memorial Museum & Library (NMML), New Delhi, was originally the residence of India's first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru and it was decided to convert into a museum and library after his death, to promote original research in modern Indian history.

Former Union minister and senior Congress leader Manish Tewari on Friday launched an indirect attack on the Centre, asking “those trying to erase Jawahar Lal Nehru’s contribution" to read ‘Discovery of India’ and ‘Glimpses of World History’. He added that legacies don’t get erased by renaming buildings.

“I wish those who want to erase Jawahar Lal Nehru’s contribution to freedom struggle & building of Modern India would once read Discovery of India and Glimpses of World History to fathom the depth of Nehru. Legacies don’t get erased by renaming buildings," Tewari tweeted.

Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh also chipped in with his tweet, "Pettiness & Vengeance, thy name is Modi. For over 59 years Nehru Memorial Museum & Library (NMML) has been a global intellectual landmark and treasure house of books & archives. It will henceforth be called Prime Ministers Museum & Society.”

"What won't Mr. Modi do to distort, disparage and destroy the name & legacy of the architect of the Indian nation-state. A small, small man overburdened by his insecurities is the self-styled Vishwaguru."

Ramesh's remarks came a day after the decision was taken at a special meeting of the NMML Society on Thursday, which was presided over by Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, who is the vice-president of the Society.

The Society has Prime Minister Narendra Modi as its chairman, and Union Ministers Amit Shah, Nirmala Sitharaman, Dharmendra Pradhan, G Kishan Reddy, Anurag Thakur, among its 29 members.

The museum was inaugurated at the Teen Murti complex last year in April, which served as the official residence of India's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru from 1948 till his death in 1964.

The autonomous institution under the Ministry of Culture, has three major constituents, namely a Memorial Museum, a Library on Modern India, and a Centre for Contemporary Studies.

With inputs from IANS