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Rizwan Kadri, a member of the Prime Minister's Museum and Library (PMML) Society has written a letter to the Lok Sabha Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi requesting to give back the documents, that he called are 'important aspect of its history' and were withdrawn from the museum allegedly on the order of Congress senior leader Sonia Gandhi.
Speaking to ANI, Kadri said that he wrote a letter to Sonia Gandhi in September requesting her to return the documents back to the institution.
"In September 2024, I wrote a letter to Sonia Gandhi requesting that the 51 cartons from approximately eight different sections, which were part of the Nehru collections at the Prime Ministers' Museum (formerly the Nehru Memorial), be either returned to the institution, or we be granted permission to scan them, or provided with their scanned copies. This would allow us to study them and facilitate research by various scholars," he said.
"These include important correspondences between Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru and Lady Mountbatten, as well as letters exchanged with Pt. Govind Ballabh Pant, Jayaprakash Narayan, and others. These letters are a significant part of Indian history and have been proven through records to have been withdrawn from the museum in 2008 at Sonia Gandhi's direction," Rizwan Kadri added.
He also mentioned that after receiving no response from Sonia Gandhi, he wrote another letter to Lok Sabha LoP Rahul Gandhi on the same.
"Since no response was received from her, I have requested Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi to help in getting these materials restored. I have also urged him to consider that these documents are part of the nation's heritage and an important aspect of its history. Until we can view these materials, we cannot determine the reasons for their withdrawal. There must have been some objectionable content for them to have been removed," Kadri said.
Bharatiya Janata Party MP Sambit Patra also responded to the same and said that it is 'intriguing'.
'From what's today the Prime Minister's Museum and Library and formerly Nehru Museum and Library, the then UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi took away 51 cartoons of letters written by Nehru to various personalities including "EDWINA MOUNTBATTEN"! In the recently concluded AGM of the PMML one of the members, Rizwan Kadri has written to LoP Rahul Gandhi and sought his help in getting back the letters from his mother Sonia Gandhi!' Patra said on X.
'What intrigues me is what would have Nehru ji written to EDWINA MOUNTBATTEN that needed censoring and will LOP Rahul help getting back the letters between Nehru and Edwina!' the BJP MP added.
Nehru Museum Memorial and Library in the Teen Murti complex in New Delhi was the official residence of Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister and it was set up in his memory as an autonomous institution under the Union Culture Ministry.