'Congress-Mukt' Nehru memorial? Kharge, Ramesh dropped from panel, Amit Shah in

New Delhi, Nov 06: The government has reconstituted the Nehru Memorial Museum & Library (NMML) Society that looks more like a Congress-mukt for all practical purposes now. Mallikarjun Kharge, Karan Singh and Jairam Ramesh of the Congress found no place in the reconstituted body announced on Tuesday night. The government inducted television journalist Rajat Sharma and ad-man Prasoon Joshi were among others.

Other prominent names who have been dropped include former minister M.J. Akbar, former army chief V.P. Malik, Infosys co-founder N.R. Narayanamurthy, historian Nayanjot Lahiri, economist Bibek Debroy, space scientist K. Kasturirangan and television anchor Arnab Goswami.

According to an order issued on Tuesday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is the president of the society and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh its vice president.

"The central government has reconstituted the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library (NMML) Society under rule 3 of the memorandum of association and rules and regulations of NMML society with Prime Minister Narendra Modi as the president and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh as vice president of the society," the order said.

Union ministers Amit Shah, Nirmala Sitharaman, Ramesh Pokhriyal, Prakash Javadekar, V Muraleedharan and Prahlad Singh Patel, ICCR chairman Vinay Sahsrabudhhe, Prasar Bharti chairman A Surya Prakash, secretaries of Expenditure, Culture and Housing and Urban Affairs, are its members.

Besides, the chairman of the University Grants Commission or UGC, representative of Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial fund, Raghvendra Singh, director of NMML and journalist Rajat Sharma are also the new members.

According to the order, the other members include Anirban Ganguly, policy researcher and author, Sachchinanda Joshi, Member Secretary, IGNCA, academic Kapil Kapoor, Lokesh Chandra, Vedic and Buddhist scholar, Makarand Pranjpe, academic, writer, Kishore Makwana, academic Kamlesh Joshipura, researcher Rizwan Kadri and Vinay Sahasrabuddhe.

"The term of the members is for a period of five years or until further orders, whichever is earlier," the order further said.

Earlier, the Centre had appointed television journalist Arnab Goswami, former foreign secretary S Jaishankar, BJP lawmaker Vinay Sahasrabuddhe and IGNCA chairman Ram Bahadur Rai as members of NMML Society, replacing four members who had opposed the move to build a museum for all PMs.

It was just last month that former culture secretary Raghavendra Singh was appointed the director of the NMML for the next six months, replacing Shakti Sinha whose tenure ended on October 4.

These appointments gain significance as the government is planning a major revamp of the museum.