Former Prime Minister P V Narasimha Rao has been conferred the Bharat Ratna, India’s highest civilian award. “As a distinguished scholar and statesman, Narasimha Rao Garu served India extensively in various capacities… His visionary leadership was instrumental in making India economically advanced, laying a solid foundation for the country's prosperity and growth,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi wrote on X on Friday (February 9). Here are four things that you need to know about P V Narasimha Rao. 1. After Narasimha Rao passed away, his body wasn’t allowed inside the Congress headquarters for ordinary workers to pay their respects. A day after Rao died, on December 24, 2004, at 10 am a flower-decked army vehicle, carrying his body, left his home on Motilal Nehru Marg, Delhi, for the airport, according to Half Lion: How P V Narasimha Rao Transformed India by Vinay Sitapati. The army vehicle was supposed to stop at 24 Akbar Road — the headquarters of the Congress party. “It was customary for the bodies of past Congress presidents to be taken inside the party headquarters so that ordinary workers could pay their respects,” Sitapati wrote. However, when the procession reached the headquarters, the gate wasn’t open. A friend of Rao’s asked a Congressman about the gate and was told, "We were expecting the gate to be opened… but no order came. Only one person could give that order." He added, "She did not give it," Sitapati mentioned. The army vehicle waited for around 30 minutes outside the headquarters and then moved on to the airport. Rao’s body was taken to Hyderabad for funeral, which was attended by leaders like former PM H D Deve Gowda and BJP’s L K Advani. Then Congress President Sonia Gandhi wasn’t present there, though. Notably, “That night, television channels showed visuals of the half-burnt body (of Rao), skull still visible, lying abandoned. Stray dogs were pulling at the funeral pyre,” Sitapati added. 2. Sonia and Rao shared a fraught relationship. There were several reasons, including personal, political, and perhaps ideological, for the frosty ties between the two Congress leaders. A Congress leader, who was a minister in the Manmohan Singh government, told The Indian Express: “The first break happened soon sometime in 1992. S Bangarappa was the Chief Minister of Karnataka. He wanted George, who was the private secretary of Rajiv Gandhi, to be given a Rajya Sabha ticket because George was instrumental in making him the CM. But Rao had other ideas. He wanted the ticket to be given to another leader. He skilfully tossed it into Gandhi’s court saying if she says I will give it to George. Gandhi was in a different state of mind. She never said yes and she never said no and the ticket went to the person who Rao wanted.” Sonia was also upset with Rao over the slow progress in the investigation into Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination case. In 1995, she went on to even openly accuse his government of going slow on the investigation into her husband’s assassination. A senior leader told the newspaper: “She felt he did not want the inquiry to proceed”. Moreover, the Congress blamed Rao for defeat in the 1996 Lok Sabha election. After the results, Rao was replaced by Sitaram Kesri as the Congress president. Two years later, the former prime minister was denied a ticket in the following Lok Sabha election. 3. Rao considered converting Ayodhya into a Union Territory and giving it a Vatican-type status Neerja Chowdhury, Contributing Editor, The Indian Express, recently wrote in her weekly column that Rao wanted to bring an ordinance to convert Ayodhya into a UT and give it a Vatican-type status. He, however, didn’t go ahead with the plan. In her book, How Prime Ministers Decide, Chowdhury also wrote that days after the demolition of Babri Masjid on December 6, 1992, journalist Nikhil Chakravartty, a friend of Rao, met the then prime minister. “‘I heard you were doing puja after twelve o’clock on 6 December,’” Chakravartty teased Rao. “A stung Rao shot back at Chakravartty, ‘Dada, you think I don’t know politics. I was born in rajniti (politics) and I have only been doing politics till today. Jo hua voh theek hua.. (What happened, happened for good.) Maine is liye hone diya.ki Bharatiya Janata Party ki mandir ki rajniti hamesha ke liye khatam ho jaaye (I allowed it to happen because I wanted the BJP’s temple politics to finish forever),’” Chowdhury mentioned. Rao even thought of building a temple where the Babri Masjid had once stood, and set up a trust with major Hindu sects represented in it, she wrote in her column. But he later decided to build the temple after the 1996 elections, when he came back to power, which he didn’t, Chowdhury added. 4. Atal Bihari Vajpayee called Rao the ‘true father’ of India’s nuclear programme. According to Sitapati’s book, Rao was actively involved in the nuclear programme. He was one of the few politicians who knew of the existence of the programme when he became the prime minister in 1991. The Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) and Defence Research & Development Organisation (DRDO) wrote a note to Rao around September 1995, recommending that India conduct two or three tests in Pokhran between December 1995 and February 1996. On December 15, 1995, however, The New York Times broke the story that American intelligence experts suspected India was preparing for its first nuclear test since 1974. “In recent weeks, spy satellites have recorded scientific and technical activity at the Pok[h]ran test site in the Rajasthan desert,” the report said. Subsequently, then US President Bill Clinton called Rao. Clinton said: “We are happy to note a clear statement by your foreign minister (Pranab Mukherjee, who didn't know about the programme, had made a public statement of denial) that the government of India is not testing.” “Rao replied as planned, ‘I saw the press clippings too. They are false.’ ‘But Mr Prime Minister,’ Clinton interjected, ‘what is this that our cameras have picked up?’ Rao replied, again as planned. ‘This is only a routine maintenance of facilities.’ Rao then added, slowly, so that Clinton could understand him through his Indian accent. ‘There is right now no plan to explode. But yes, we are ready. We have the capability,’” Sitapati wrote. Despite Cliton’s call and The NYT’s story, Rao, in February 1996, asked the finance ministry to “prepare yet another analysis of the economic effects of a nuclear test,” according to the book. The prime minister again received a call from Clinton next month and was urged to not go ahead with the test. Although it’s not known what the President exactly said, the call is proof that Rao was still considering testing nuclear weapons in March 1996, Sitapati wrote. In May, the prime minister, who was campaigning for Lok Sabha elections, called A P J Abdul Kalam, then head of DRDO, to wait for his authorisation to go ahead with the test. However, days later, Rao again called Kalam to postpone the test as “the election result was quite different from what he anticipated,” Sitapati wrote.
