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How Gwalior-born Vajpayee became Lucknow's favourite boy

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Sharat Pradhan
Sharat PradhanAug 17, 2018 | 12:31

How Gwalior-born Vajpayee became Lucknow's favourite boy

Vajpayee was unique in many ways.

Whether he was a PM or an MP, former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee was just ‘Atal ji’ for the commoners in Lucknow, from where he had won five consecutive terms in the Lok Sabha.

Vajpayee was unique in many ways.

From 1991 to 2009, when he represented Lucknow in Parliament, he emerged as a universally loved leader. Unlike many of his own party leaders, his support base included people of different hues. And what came as the biggest surprise for him as well as his own party leaders was how he endeared a reasonable section of Lucknow’s Muslim population, who without hesitation came out in his support, as time went by.

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Lucknow link: File photo of Atal Bihari Vajpayee submitting his election nomination papers to the district magistrate in 2004 (Photo: Reuters)

I remember how I was astounded to find a group of young Muslim boys campaigning for him in 1999. For a while I began to even doubt whether they were actually Muslims or not. And I must confess that I could convince myself only after cross-checking their details. Thereafter, his closest lieutenant and a popular local BJP leader Lalji Tandon took me around to some senior Muslims, who explained to me how and why Vajpayee had earned the goodwill of the minority community.

“The economic prosperity that you see in a section of our community today is largely attributed to Atal Ji, who as India’s external affairs minister between 1977-80 opened the doors of employment in the Middle East countries,” an elderly Muslim living in a narrow bylane of Lucknow’s Chowk then told me.

A few years later, while covering Vajpayee’s election again in Lucknow, I came across many younger Muslims who hailed him for improving their general living conditions. Well, it was Vajpayee who got Lalji Tandon to improve the lanes and bylanes, drainage and sanitation of the walled city, where filth and squalor had been the order of the day for decades.

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Even though Vajpayee rose from the RSS ranks, his soft mannerisms, easy accessibility and aversion to dogmatism kept him away from acquiring the image of a hardcore Hindutva icon.  

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Man of masses: Vajpayee during a visit to Indian families in Islamabad in 2004 (File photo: Reuters)

A man of very few needs, he did not care for any kind of ostentation. And today when we see ‘netas’ enjoying all kinds of extravagance and opulence at the expense of the state, it seems incredible that the five-time Lucknow MP never cared to acquire a spacious and lavish bungalow.

Instead, he opted for a simple three-bedroom apartment in no posh area in the state capital, where his doors were always thrown open for everyone, whenever he was on a visit here.

During his Luknow visits, he would easily delve into chitchat with common people; he would recite poems, or his witty one-liners. Journalists never needed any appointment to meet him. They could just walk up to him and seek audience. His manfriday Shiv Kumar was always there to ensure that his instructions to help out anyone in distress were carried out.

Significantly, irrespective of who was sitting in power, Vajpayee’s recommendations — whether to help a poor with medical treatment, or redressal of some petty grievances – would never be ignored.

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Ideological clashes never became prestige issues. Vajpayee knew how to take everyone along. (File photo: Reuters)

Even as he sat at the helm of affairs, conceiving plans at the macro level, he was still concerned about grassroots issues at the micro level. And that definitely included his parliamentary constituency, where some major development schemes were undertaken for the first time in many years. It resulted in the laying of Lucknow’s first ring road, named ‘Shaheed path’, besides the much-needed new water works and a modern sewage treatment plant.

Widely perceived as a man of all seasons and someone who made his success stories because of his amazing skills at striking consensus even with his ideological opponents, he was adept in the art of taking everyone along.

And he did not believe in making it a prestige issue if certain acts of commission by his own political compatriots did not conform to his personal inclusive and flexible ways. That was amply demonstrated in his attitude towards the demolition of the 16th century Babri Masjid in Ayodhya by people whom he trusted or against the infamous Gujarat riots of 2002. He did not refrain from publicly expressing his displeasure and pain on both the occasions.

Vajpayeeji’s love was Lucknow. But he originally hailed from Gwalior in Madhya Pradesh. He never made any bones about eulogising the city’s inclusive ‘Ganga-Jamuni tehzeeb’.

To satisfy his palate, he did not hesitate to go over to his favourite Ram Asrey ‘mithai’ shop or ‘Raja ki thandai’ corner in Chowk.

He had been missing from active politics for a long time. But Lucknow will miss their Atalji for these light-hearted side stories that today’s politics lacks.

Last updated: August 17, 2018 | 17:32
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