Nation to bid adieu to Manmohan Singh; body brought to AICC headquarters, last rites at Nigambodh Ghat

NEW DELHI: The nation will bid adieu to former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today. His last rites will be held at Nigambodh Ghat. The Congress had demanded that the cremation be allowed at a place where a memorial can be built. The Centre then informed that land will be allotted for the memorial and a trust will be formed and the land will then be handed over. There was protest against the Centre's delay in responding to this. The body of Manmohan Singh, which is at his residence on Motilal Nehru Marg in Delhi, was brought to the AICC headquarters at 8 am. A public darshan has been arranged at the AICC from 8.30 to 9.30 am. The body will later be taken to the funeral site, Nigambodh Ghat, in a cortege. The funeral will be held at Nigambodh Ghat with full military honours at 11.45 am. Manmohan Singh died on Thursday while undergoing treatment at AIIMS. The body was shifted to his residence on Motilal Road that night itself. Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge, Lok Sabha opposition leader Rahul Gandhi and AICC General Secretary K C Venugopal, who landed in Delhi at 2 am from Belgaum in Karnataka, went straight to the house of the former prime minister. After paying their respects to him, they consoled his relatives. Union Home Minister Amit Shah and BJP President J P Nadda had reached the hospital at night. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Amit Shah and J P Nadda reached his residence early Friday morning and paid their respects. Later, President Draupadi Murmu and Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar arrived. Delhi Chief Minister Atishi, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu, Telangana Chief Minister Revanth Reddy, Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Sukhwinder Singh Sukhu, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin, Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami, Union Ministers Rajnath Singh, Nirmala Sitharaman, Samajwadi Party President Akhilesh Yadav, Aam Aadmi Party Convener Arvind Kejriwal and others were also present. Congress leaders Mallikarjun Kharge, Sonia Gandhi, Rahul, Priyanka, K C Venugopal, Ramesh Chennithala, V D Satheesan, Jairam Ramesh, M K Raghavan, Adoor Prakash and others were at Manmohan's residence since yesterday morning.