“Frustrated mindset…”: Congress leader Sandeep Dixit on Centre renaming Nehru Memorial Museum and Library

New Delhi [India], August 16 (ANI): Congress leader Sandeep Dixit on Wednesday slammed the Centre over the rechristening of Nehru Memorial Museum and Library (NMML) to the Prime Ministers’ Museum and Library (PMML) Society, saying the step to rename the museum reflects the frustrated mindset of the Centre.

Speaking to ANI on Wednesday, Dixit said, “This is nothing else but a reflection of a frustrated mindset. Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru was our first PM. An institution was named after him and a museum was built to showcase his tenure in the country’s highest office. If you (Centre) had to name institutions on other PMs, you could have done it.”

“But if you suppress or remove something, it means that your motive was never about making an exhibition for other PMs but an attempt to suppress the golden history of India,” he added. 

The Nehru Memorial Museum and Library (NMML) was officially been renamed as the Prime Ministers’ Museum and Library (PMML) Society with effect from Monday by the Centre.

PMML vice-chairman A Surya Prakash took to X, formerly Twitter, to say,” Nehru Memorial Museum and Library (NMML) is now Prime Ministers Museum and Library (PMML) Society w.e.f August 14, 2023 – in tune with the democratisation and diversification of the remit of the society. Happy Independence Day! PM Narendra Modi, Rajnath Singh, Min of Culture GoI.”

Lashing out at the Centre over the renaming of the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library (NMML), Jairam Ramesh took to X to say that Prime Minister Narendra Modi can never take away the gigantic contributions made by Jawahar Lal Nehru in the freedom movement of the nation. 

“Mr. Modi possesses a huge bundle of fears, complexes and insecurities, especially when it comes to our first and longest-serving Prime Minister. He has had a single-point agenda of denying, distorting, defaming and destroying Nehru and the Nehruvian legacy. He has erased N and put P instead. That P is really for pettiness and peeve. But he can never take away Nehru’s gigantic contributions to the freedom movement and his towering achievements in building the democratic, secular, scientific and liberal foundations of the Indian nation-state, all of which are now under assault by Mr Modi and his drumbeaters,” Jairam Ramesh said.

The Union Culture Ministry had put out an official word that it had decided to change the name of the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library Society to Prime Ministers’ Museum and Library Society.

The decision was taken at a special meeting of the Memorial Museum and Library Society which was presided over by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, who is also the Vice-President of the Society.

This project was approved by Executive Council, NMML in its 162nd meeting held in November 2016. The Pradhanmantri Sangrahalaya was opened to the public on April 21 last year.