Manmohan first PM outside Nehru-Gandhi clan to hoist flag for 10th time

Manmohan Singh became the first Prime Minister outside the Gandhi-Nehru family to unfurl the national tri-colour from the ramparts of the Red Fort for the 10th time. Only Jawaharlal Nehru and his daughter Indira Gandhi have hoisted the flag more than 10 times at the Red Fort.

Nehru had hoisted the national flag 17 consecutive times while Indira Gandhi got the honour 16 times. Indira Gandhi had unfurled the flag 11 consecutive times between 1966 and 1977.

Dr. Singh, who assumed office on May 22, 2009 for the second consecutive term, already has the distinction of being the third longest serving Prime Minister after Nehru and Gandhi.

Dr. Singh’s predecessor Atal Bihari Vajpayee had unfurled the tricolour from the Red Fort six consecutive times from 1998 to 2003.

Dr. Singh, the country’s 14th Prime Minister, first hoisted the tricolour on August 15, 2004, nearly four months after he assumed office in May. Nehru was the first Prime Minister to unfurl the flag from the ramparts of the 17th century Mughal monument on August 15, 1947 after India became independent.

Gandhi want to disband congress party

TN Chief Minister and AIADMK supremo J Jayalalithaa had opposition members squirming in their seats and the treasury benches sniggering when she taught Congress MLAs in the state assembly a few lessons about their own party history. It was a class she took with great relish, reading out from a voluminous book, titled ‘The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi-Volume 90,’ published by the Union ministry of information and broadcasting in 1984.

A day after the five Congress MLAs in the assembly demanded proof for a statement made by a state minister in the assembly about a well-known fact about the party’s history that Mahatma Gandhi wanted to disband it immediately after Independence, Jayalalithaa produced the book in the House to make her point. Liberally quoting from it, she said, “Though split into two, India having attained political independence through means devised by the Indian National Congress, the Congress in its present shape and form, that is, as a propaganda vehicle and parliamentary machine, had outlived its use.”

Earlier, local administration minister K P Munusamy had mocked Congress members saying Mahatma Gandhi wanted to disband their party after the country’s Independence. This evoked loud protests from the Congress MLAs, who demanded proof for his statement. Jayalalithaa said she had kept silent during the argument as she wanted to speak with proof in hand the following day. To drive home her point that Congress members appeared ignorant about their own party’s history, the CM said late Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had written the foreword in the book. “Mahatma Gandhi himself has said in his writings that the Congress has expired,” Jayalalithaa said, taunting the red-faced Congress MLAs.

“It (the Congress) must be kept out of unhealthy competition with political parties and communal bodies. For these and other similar reasons, the AICC resolves to disband the existing Congress organisation,” Jayalalithaa said, quoting from the book. “So, this is appropriate proof that many people, who are in the Congress, are speaking without even knowing their party’s history,” she said. The chief minister also slammed the UPA government’s ‘wrong’ policies and urged the Centre to take effective measures immediately to control spiraling prices of essential commodities.