india

Updated: Jul 25, 2019 06:14 IST

There has been a concerted effort by a set of people to undermine the contribution of several prime ministers who have not received the kind of recognition in history that they deserved, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Wednesday.

Releasing a book on former Prime Minister Chandra Shekhar, Modi said he was determined to correct this wrong and had decided to build a museum to list the contribution of former PMs in nation building.

“Chandra Shekhar: The last icon of ideological politics” has been written by Rajya Sabha deputy chairman Harivansh, who also served as the information officer to the Chandra Shekhar in the PMO.

Vice-president M Venkaiah Naidu was the chief guest at the function, which was also attended by Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla and Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad, besides several Union ministers and MPs.

In his speech, Modi did not name PMs from the Nehru-Gandhi family, and said there was a design behind presenting several prime ministers in poor light.

“Morarji Desai is known for what he used to drink [the former PM believed in urine therapy]...one prime minister was presented in a manner as if he used to sleep in every meeting…people say about another prime minister that he used to back-stab,” Modi said at the event. “This is an injustice to them.”

Modi said Lal Bahadur Shastri survived all this because he died before returning to India (from Tashkent in 1966). “Had he returned to India alive, this set of people would be spreading similar things about him too.”

“But now I have decided that a dedicated museum of all former prime ministers will be established in Delhi,” he said, urging family members of the former prime ministers to share all things related to them for this museum.

The Bharatiya Janata Party has always criticised the Congress for glorifying prime ministers from the Nehru-Gandhi family, while ignoring the contribution of others.

Modi said despite coming from a different ideological family, Chandra Shekhar shared a warm relationship with Jan Sangh leaders such as former vice president Bhairon Singh Shekhawat and former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, whom he used to refer as “Gururji”.