Least ambitious look made Rao the PM, says Vinay Sitapati

Hyderabad: As a Congressman, former Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao was pretending to be unambitious while doing things silently, said Mr Vinay Sitapati, author of ‘Half Lion: How P.V. Narasimha Rao Transformed India’ at the Hyderabad Literary Festival on Sunday.

The session, “PV: The Unlikely Prime Minis-ter” was hosted by Sunita Reddy. “Yet, by virtue of being the least ambitious Congress person, he became Prime Minister,” Mr Sitapati said.

He added that the Congress didn’t treat him well in death. While he was a national leader who had made Delhi his home, the Nehru-Gandhi family wanted to treat him like a state leader and hence he was abandoned during death.

Pointing out that the anti-Sikh riots were the vilest hour for the former PM, Mr Sitapati said: “Narasimha Rao did not act on the Sikh riots because he got a sign from the PMO to let things be and go wild. Delhi police had this peculiar thing of reporting to the home minister but Narasimha Rao, the then home minister, was denuded of power. He got a call from Arun Nehru (who speaks for Rajiv Gandhi) to let the station house officers report to the latter. The next few days, Mr Narasimha Rao was only concerned about looking good in front of the new Prime Minister,” Mr Sitapati said.

Saying that Mr Rao was “on the wrong side of history” because of the Sikh riots, Mr Sitapati said: “We use different yardsticks to measure Sikh riots and Babri Masjid cases. The court declared that Mr Rao was innocent in the Babri case, but we believe the buck stops with the PM. He is guilty of being a Congressman. Narasimha Rao isn’t any less to blame for the Babri Masjid incident than the Congress is. The only political figures who took objection to my chapter on Babri Masjid were Congressmen.”

The author attributed India’s good ties with incompatible countries like Russia and United States, Israel and Iran to Narasimha Rao’s foreign policy.  Speaking about Bill Clinton’s visit to Hyderabad, the author quoted cardiologist Dr Srinath Reddy as saying Mr Rao was nervous to talk to Mr Clinton, as the former US President had a low attention span.

On the other hand, as per Mr Sitapati, Mr Rao could read and write 10 languages. Because of the area he was born in, he knew four languages: Telugu, Marathi, Odia and Kannada.