Why the Outcry Over Giving JPNIC a New Lease of Life?

The political row over Lucknow’s Lok Nayak Jayaprakash Narayan International Centre has intensified. BJP spokesperson Dinesh Pratap Singh questioned the project’s rising cost under the Samajwadi Party government and backed efforts to make the centre operational.

There has been a peculiar tradition in Indian politics: whenever the name of a great personality is associated with an institution, road, or major building, political parties rush to link it with their ideology or attempt to stamp their ideological imprint on it. This approach is fundamentally wrong. Mahatma Gandhi, Sardar Patel, Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya and Jayaprakash Narayan are shared national icons and a source of pride for the entire nation. Therefore, if the process of making the Lok Nayak Jayaprakash Narayan International Centre (JPNIC) in Lucknow operational has now begun, it should be viewed as a national duty rather than turned into a political issue. The true tribute to Lok Nayak will be paid when the building comes alive when conferences are held there, people come and go, and national discourse and cultural activities are visible at the centre. His legacy is not honoured by flying the flag of any political party there. Jayaprakash Narayan’s name cannot be held hostage to politics. Any such attempt is itself an affront to his legacy.

What Was the Samajwadi Party’s Intent?

It is only natural to raise certain questions about the intentions of the Samajwadi Party, which is making a hue and cry over the prospect of JPNIC being handed over to private hands. How did a project originally estimated at ₹200 crore end up costing ₹850 crore? Why did it nevertheless remain incomplete? Where did the money go? How would the SP government have operated the centre........

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