Congress absent for Manmohan Singh's 'Asthi Visarjan', says BJP; 'wanted to give family privacy' says party

New Delhi: Congress on Monday said its senior leaders did not accompany Manmohan Singh’s family to gather and immerse the ashes of the former Prime Minister “out of deference” to their privacy during an “emotionally painful and difficult” ceremony.

The party’s statement came as the BJP launched an attack on the Congress, especially the Gandhi family, for their absence when Singh’s ashes were immersed in Yamuna after collecting it from Nigambodh Ghat where the 92-year-old leader was cremated on Saturday.

“Senior Congress leaders did not accompany the family to gather and immerse the ashes of Manmohan Singh-ji out of our deference to the privacy of the family. After the cremation of our departed leader, Sonia Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra met the family at their residence,” Congress Media and Publicity Department Chairperson Pawan Khera said.

“After discussing with them, it was felt that since the family did not get any privacy at the time of the cremation and some extended family members could not reach the pyre site, it would be appropriate to give them some privacy for the ‘Phool Chunana’ and the immersion of the ashes which is an emotionally painful and difficult ceremony for close family members,” he said in the statement.

On Sunday, BJP leader Manjinder Singh Sirsa, who was present at the time of the immersion of Singh’s ashes, alleged that no one was there from the Gandhi family. “Today, when there was no camera, there was no one from Congress. This is a sad thing,” he had said.

Both Congress and BJP are locked in a war of words over Singh’s cremation with the former claiming that the Narendra Modi government has “totally insulted” the former Prime Minister’s legacy and the Sikh community by cremating him in Nigambodh Ghat and not a specified place where his memorial could be built.

Hitting back, the BJP has said space for a memorial would be allocated and the Congress was playing politics over the death of Singh, who it “never respected in his times”. Congress had support from various Opposition leaders, including Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin and the AAP.

Questions were raised over conducting the cremation at Nigam Bodh Ghat and not at Rashtriya Smriti Sthal where former Prime Ministers IK Gujral in 2012 and AB Vajpayee in 2018 were cremated but Singh’s final rites were not conducted here. The Rashtriya Smriti Sthal was operationalised by the UPA government citing a 2000 Cabinet decision.

The Smriti Sthal was established near Raj Ghat to perform the last rites of top national leaders due to the paucity of space in the existing Samadhi complex where the memorials of Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi among others are also placed.