When PM Lal Bahadur Shastri took Rs 5000 loan to buy car; wife paid from pension after his death
In times when we see wealthy businessmen swindling banks of crores of loans with the help of sway they hold in the corridors of power, there is a refreshing example from the past of how those with integrity not only not abuse power to get special treatment but repay their debts, even after they are gone.
This is the former Prime Minister of India Lal Bahadur Shastri, whose Rs 5000 car loan was repaid by his wife from the family pension after his death.
The cream-coloured 1964 Fiat, bearing no. DLE 6 today stands at Delhi’s Lal Bahadur Shastri Memorial at 1, Motilal Nehru Marg.
Shastri didn’t have any car, but his family pressed him to get one, reminisced his son and former union minister Anil Kumar Shastri once talking to a newspaper.
The former PM asked his secretary to find out how much would a Fiat car cost following the family’s insistence. It was found that the car cost Rs 12000 against just Rs 7000 in Shastri’s account.
Shastri, then applied for a loan of Rs 5000 at Punjab National Bank, which was promptly sanctioned. Shastri’s son recalls that at this the former PM called the officer who sanctioned the loan so promptly and asked if he did the same with other applicants as well.
But Shastri passed away soon after in Tashkent before he could repay his loan. The remaining debt was repaid by Shashti’s wife from the family pension.
Former PM Lal Bahadur Shastri died in January 1966 in Tashkent after signing the peace treaty ending the 1965 Indo-Pak war.
