The Telangana Assembly on Tuesday adopted a resolution asking the Centre to confer the prestigious Bharat Ratna award -- India's highest civil honour -- to late former Prime Minister P V Narasimha Rao. On the second day of the Assembly session, the government tabled the resolution which demanded that the former Prime Minister, who belongs to Telangana, be honoured posthumously.
Beginning the session, Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao said, “Everyone in Telangana has the sadness that the respect PV Narasimha Rao deserved was not given to him. We don’t want to get into the details of who should be blamed for it but in the context of Telangana state observing his centenary birth celebrations, we ask the Central government to confer him with a Bharat Ratna award.”
The Telangana government is observing a year-long birth centenary celebration of late Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao. As part of the year-long celebrations, several events commemorating the late Prime Minister have been scheduled.
In his speech in the Assembly, KCR said that in modern India only two leaders changed the course of the country one being Jawaharlal Nehru and the other being PV Narasimha Rao. KCR said that while Jawaharlal Nehru laid the foundation stone for a “modern India”, PV Narasimha Rao was the creator of “global India.”
Lauding the efforts of the former Prime Minister to quell unrest in Punjab and Kashmir, KCR said that PV Narasimha was instrumental in offering full support and strategic assistance to KPS Gill.
“He restored peace in Punjab bringing into action the renowned police officer KPS Gill who was capable of suppressing terrorists. He had given full support and strategic support because of which peace was restored in Punjab state. He had established peace in Kashmir with help of competent officials like KR Venugopal,” KCR said.
The Chief Minister said that though PV Narasimha Rao belonged to a feudal family, he implemented land reforms Act in 1972 as the Chief Minister of erstwhile Andhra Pradesh.
KCR claimed that under PVNR’s regime, the Indian foreign policy took a bright turn in diplomacy, as he established good ties with America.
“It is Narasimha Rao’s strategy which had changed the negative attitude of the then President of America, Bill Clinton, who was against India and was favourable towards Pakistan. PVNR’s foresight had contributed India bringing closer to the "Asian Tigers" like Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia with introduction of "Look East Policy," KCR said.
Under PVNR’s tenure, peace along the border of Indo-China continued for around three decades, he said. Meanwhile, TRS's ally AIMIM has opposed the resolution and walked out of the assembly.
Read: AIMIM opposes Bharat Ratna to PV Narasimha Rao, boycotts Telangana Assembly session