In 1977, when a new External Affairs Minister in India's first non-Congress government entered office he noticed a portrait missing from its place. “This is where Panditji’s portrait used to be. I remember it from my earlier visits to the room. Where has it gone? I want it back,” he told his secretary.

The minister was Atal Bihari Vajpayee in the Morarji Desai government that had just brought an end to the regime of Jawaharlal Nehru’s daughter Indira Gandhi who had put him behind the bars during emergency in 1975-77.

This was Vajpayee’s brand of gentlemanly politics for more than half a century, which earned him the respect of friends and foes alike.
 
It was his charisma and mass appeal that enabled him to take charge of a coalition government of 23 parties in 1999 after his brief stint as the prime minister in 1996. Before his electoral reverse in 2004, he had completed six straight years in office spread over two terms to become India's longest serving prime minister outside the Congress and the only since Nehru to have assumed the post through three successive mandates.

Nuclear tests at Pokharan in 1998, bus journey to Pakistan followed by Kargil conflict in 1999, Agra summit with General Pervez Musharraf in 2001 and then again extending a hand of friendship to Pakistan from Kashmir besides bringing Kashmiri separatists groups to the negotiating table were some of the highlights of his tenure.

Born at Gwalior in Madhya Pradesh on 25 December 1924, the BJP veteran was a visionary statesman, a great parliamentarian, an outstanding orator, distinguished litterateur and a celebrated poet.

He died at the age of 93 in Delhi on 16 August 2018.

He was awarded Bharat Ratna in 2014 and his birth anniversary on December 25 is celebrated as ‘Good Governance Day’.

Addressing a public meeting – the first by a Prime Minister in 15 years -- in Srinagar on 18 April 2003, Vajpayee asserted that both “internal and external” issues could be resolved by following the three principles of Insaaniyat (humanism), Jamhooriyat (democracy) and Kashmiriyat (Kashmir's age old legacy of amity).

To be continued.....


Pictures courtesy: Google