Death anniversary of former President once against organised at government expenditure

New Delhi, Dec 27: With the formation of the Congress government in Madhya Pradesh, the party has celebrated the death anniversary of former President Dr Shankar Dayal Sharma on the government expenditure in Delhi. Madhya Pradesh chief minister Kamal Nath sent one of the ministers in his cabinet P C Sharma to Delhi for this special occasion.

The previous Bharatiya Janata Party government led by the then chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan had stopped giving any money for celebrating occasions like birth and death anniversary of senior leaders. Former President's memorial is in Delhi. Earlier there was a provision of budget of several lakhs for this purpose.

After the Modi government took over at the Centre, Union urban development ministry has made it clear that it won't give any money for the upkeep of memorials, birth and death anniversary programmes of any senior leaders. It was said from the ministry that the responsibility of the expenditure should either be borne by the concerned state government or by the family members.

Former President Dr Shankar Dayal Sharma belonged to Bhopal but his memorial is close to Rajghat named as Karma Bhumi. After the Centre deciding to stop every expenditure on memorial of Shankar Dayal Sharma, the Madhya Pradesh government was organising the programme at Karma Bhumi.

Ministers in the state government used to participate in it but later on even the state government stopped funding such programmes. Dr Shankar Dayal Sharma belonged to the Congress and he was national party president in 1972. So the new Congress government in the state decided to organise the programme with full respect.

However, on the occasion of 19th death anniversary of the former President only three leaders have reached to pay their homage - Motilal Bora, Suresh Pachauri and minister in the state government P C Sharma. There were counted number of people at the venue of the programme and the entire venue was vacant.