M A I N   N E W S

PM, Sonia to attend Rao’s funeral
Tribune News Service

New Delhi, December 24
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi will be among those who will attend the last rites of former Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao in Hyderabad tomorrow, where he will be accorded a state funeral.

Union Minister Jaipal Reddy and Prithviraj Chavan, who has been nominated by the Prime Minister to be the Minister in Attendance for assisting the family members in funeral related arrangements, accompanied the body in a special chartered plane to Hyderabad.

Senior party leaders Motilal Vora and Ashok Gehlot also accompanied the body, sources said.

During the day, a galaxy of leaders cutting across party lines converged on the Congress headquarters in the Capital to pay their last respects to Mr Rao, who passed away on Thursday following cardiac arrest.

The body of the former Prime Minister was kept for public veneration at the 24 Akbar Road headquarters of the party, which Rao headed for more than five years.

Mr Manmohan Singh and Mrs Sonia Gandhi were present at AICC headquarters along with several senior party colleagues to receive the body when it was brought there this morning from his 9 Moti Lal Nehru Road residence just about 100 metres away.

His body, wrapped in the Tricolour, was brought to the Congress office on a flower-bedecked gun carriage escorted by a cavalcade of over two dozen Army vehicles.

As the cavalcade pulled slowly on way to the party office, large number Congress workers paid their respect and raised slogans of “Narasimha Raoji amar rahen”.

Rao’s three sons were present alongside the body on the gun carriage as the late Prime Minister embarked on his final journey.

Several important leaders, including Union Ministers P. Chidambaram, Sharad Pawar and Laloo Prasad Yadav and BJP leader Jaswant Singh today paid homage to the former Prime Minister.

Samata Party leader Jaya Jaitley and several MPs and leaders from Andhra Pradesh, Rao’s native state, also arrived at the departed leader’s residence early this morning to pay their 
tributes.

Former Prime Minister V.P. Singh, who was in a wheel chair, Minister for Youth Affairs and Sports Sunil Dutt, PDP chief and MP Mehbooba Mufti, Subramanium Swamy, former Orissa Chief Minister Giridhar Gomang and Samajwadi Party MP Jaya Prada paid tributes to the departed leader.

US Ambassador David C. Mulford today laid a wreath at the body of late Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao on behalf of President George W. Bush and the people of his country.

Expressing his condolence, the Ambassador said Rao was a “great reformer... it is very important for the people of our country to honour the memory of this statesman.”

Rao’s body arrives in Hyderabad

Hyderabad, December 24
The body of former Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao was brought here by a chartered plane from New Delhi this afternoon.

The body was received at the airport by Andhra Pradesh Governor Sushilkumar Shinde, Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddy, his Cabinet colleagues and senior officials.

The body of the late Prime Minister wrapped in the tricolour was taken in flower-bedecked gun carriage in a procession from the airport to the historic Jubilee Hall gardens for public veneration.

A Cabinet meeting held today placed on record the contribution of Rao to the economic reforms in the country as well as to the state during his tenure as Chief Minister.

The Cabinet also ratified to allot 2.9 acres of land on the north side of the Hussainsagar lake, where Rao’s body will be cremated tomorrow.

The government has made all necessary arrangements for the cremation of Rao on the north side of the banks of picturseque Hussain-Sagar lake bed where last rites will be performed tomorrow by his eldest son P.V. Ranga Rao, official sources here said.

A stream of visitors, including long time associates, close and distant relatives of Rao paid homage at the airport. — PTI

When Rao lost job for meeting Press

Hyderabad, December 24
Pamulaparthy Venkata Narasimha Rao may not have been considered media-friendly by the press. But very few know that he lost his job as State Information and Public Relations Minister in 1964 for addressing journalists.

Mr Rao, a practising lawyer and a three-time MLA was taken as the Law, Information and Public Relations Minister in the Sanjeeva Reddy Cabinet in 1962. The Vijayawada Journalist Association had invited PVN to address their annual meet in 1964.

On the eve of the meeting, Mr Reddy asked PVN not to attend it as the Vijayawada press was allegedly biased against him and his government. But Mr Rao reasoned that he, as the Information and Public Relations Minister, had given a date to the journalists and had to keep his appointment.

Mr Reddy later stripped PVN of his portfolio and made him the Endowments Minister.

Mr Rao who was away from Hyderabad, was informed of this change enroute to Warrangal. — UNI