Photos of leaders who resigned from Cong adorn new party HQ
In his autobiography, “Truth, Love and a Little Malice”, journalist Khushwant Singh described in detail how disgusted Indira Gandhi was with Jagjivan Ram after the latter abandoned the Congress before the 1977 General Election and joined hands with the Opposition.
The Dalit leader, who passed away in 1986, beams from a picture mounted on the wall of the new Congress headquarters here, inaugurated by Congress Parliamentary Party chairperson Sonia Gandhi on Wednesday.
That the Congress has followed the policy of “let bygones be bygones” while choosing photographs adorning the new building is also clear from a picture of the late Narasimha Rao hung on one of the walls of the new building.
Rao, during his tenure as the Prime Minister and the Congress president, tried to sideline Sonia Gandhi and the latter never forgave Rao for that. However, a picture of Rao, sitting on a cane chair in the lawns of his official residence, has found a place on one of walls of the five-storey Indira Bhawan, as the new Congress headquarters has been christened.
There is even a picture of former Prime Minister VP Singh, who as Finance Minister, revolted and created major problems for Rajiv Gandhi, who was then the Prime Minister. Unlike Rao and Jagjivan Ram, VP Singh’s is not a solo picture. The photo, which dates back to 1985, shows VP Singh alongside Manmohan Singh, Rao and KR Narayanan at a Cabinet meeting presided over by Rajiv, who too is in the frame.
Built at a cost of Rs 225 crore, the five-storey new headquarters of the country’s premier Opposition party has conference rooms and office rooms in each floor with plenty of light and air. It is the photographs which are real assets of the building.
From the caption of one of the photographs, one learns that Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, who became the Congress president in 1938, was fond of air travel. He preferred flying to other modes of transport. Back in those days, Bose once chartered a single engine biplane to reach Delhi from Kolkata for an emergency Congress meeting.
While there are more photographs of Indira Gandhi in the building than any other leader, no photograph of Sanjay Gandhi, the enfant terrible who created havoc in the country during the days of Emergency (1975-77), can be spotted in the new Congress headquarters.
The old Congress office located at 24 Akbar Road did not have a library. The new building has one. The library, which only has a handful of books at this point of time, has been named after Manmohan Singh. Congress leader Jairam Ramesh said the library would be made accessible to all.
Starting from booth-level leaders, the Congress’ new headquarters has rooms for all office-bearers in various floors with the top floor of the building housing offices for the incumbent party president and former presidents.
