Narasimha Rao’s Body Waited on the Pavement Outside AICC Office; The Gate was Not Opened

New Delhi: A new Book alleges that former Prime Minister Narasimha Rao asked the Intelligence Bureau to prepare a list of those went to Sonia Gandhi the day after Babri Masjid demolition, to complain about Rao’s action.

On December 7, Rao posted an IB official at 10, Janpath, to check Sonia’s visitors.

In his yet to be released book, ‘Half-Lion: How P V Narasimha Rao Transformed India’, author Vinay Sitapati, who got unprecedented access to Rao’s personal papers,writes that Sonia also kept tabs on Rao, with the help of the Congress Party.

Some other revelations by the author Vijay Sitapati whose signed article appeared in The Indian Express:

>> Sonia had spent the first two years of Rao’s prime ministership grieving for her dead husband. But after 1992, Sonia began to cultivate a coterie of Congressmen who opposed Rao.

>> Rao was unloved by his people, hated by his party, a minority in Parliament, and beholden to 10, Janpath.

> > When Rao died, his family wanted the body cremated in Delhi. “This is his karmabhoomi”, Rao’s son Prabhakara told Manmohan Singh. But Sonia’s closest aides ensured that the body was moved to Hyderabad. Prabhakara alleges, “Soniaji did not want… him to be seen as an all-India leader”

>> Rao’s body was made to wait on the wintry pavement outside the Congress headquarters at 24, Akbar Road, while the gate remained locked. “Only one person could give that order (to open the gate),” a senior Congressman who was present remembers. “She did not give it.”