APJ Abdul Kalam’s nephew Haja Syed Ibrahim quit the Bharatiya Janata Party on Monday after it allotted the former president's bungalow in Delhi to a minister instead of converting it into a memorial. Ibrahim said his uncle’s wish was for the bungalow to be made into a knowledge centre for students, but the party allotted the two-storey house on 10, Rajaji Marg to junior culture minister Mahesh Sharma. He said the government had “failed to fulfil the overall demand of the people of India”.
NDTV reported that the BJP-led government justified the move by saying Sharma was the only minister who had not been allotted a bungalow since it came to power in 2014. Sharma had controversially described Kalam as a “nationalist and humanist despite being a Muslim”.
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