Vajpayee in Opposition’s eyes: ‘Not bitter, always ready to engage’

READ | ‘Today Kashmiris miss him the most, he gave them hope’

The pleasantries were exchanged, then there was an awkward pause. The Left leaders, anxious to know why they were invited for breakfast with the PM, finally asked what was on his mind. Vajpayee haltingly suggested there was pressure from the US on India to join the campaign in Iraq, and asked them how their protests were going. They replied they were opposed to Indian troop deployment on foreign soil and that the public response to the protests was encouraging. “But I can’t hear anything,” Vajpayee quipped.

The signal was clear. The PM wanted the opposition to make more noise so that he could use domestic opposition as a pretext to fend off US pressure. That was Vajpayee. Not bitter, never inimical, always willing to engage.

CPM general secretary Sitaram Yechury remembered his encounters with Vajpayee after pulling down his government twice —- in 1996 and 1998.

READ | Vajpayee’s comrades, LK Advani to Murli Manohar Joshi

“We had grown up as students hearing slogans ‘desh ka pradhan mantri kaisa ho, Atal Bihari Vajpayee jaisa ho. That was in the slogan in the 1970s… In order to stop the communal forces, because that was soon after Babri Masjid demolition… we had all forged the united front… we brought him down as PM twice. It must have been a bitter feeling for him…

READ | Vajpayee built engagement with West; outreach to China, Pakistan holds key lessons

“But never once did he figure in that in terms of his personal relationship with people. He was able to separate the ideological and political differences and heated debates which we had from a humanitarian approach, which is why he found acceptability among various sections,” Yechury told The Indian Express.

Atal Bihari Vajpayee with Pervez Musharraf. (File Photo)

He recalled having run into Vajpayee at an official banquet in Hyderabad House. “He asked me kya haal hain… what is happening in the country… I said smilingly that there is talk that Vajpayee is a good man but in the wrong party… and he immediately said ‘kya communist log mujhe lene ke liye tayyar hain kya… he had that way of getting along with people,” he said.

Yechury contrasted Vajpayee’s government and the BJP with that of the present one. “Today, the disagreements are taken to the level of animosity and hate. And this sort of building of hate engenders violence. We were also very critical of Vajpayee after the Gujarat pogrom. Though he invoked Raj Dharma, he stopped short of taking action… no breakthrough happened as far as Kashmir is concerned…the fact is that while we would have our political and ideological differences, he had a manner in which he could relate with people,” Yechury said.

Prime Minister Vajpayee with Cabinet colleague Jaswant Singh (right). (Photo: Harish Tyagi)

“It is not the fact that Vajpayeeji had many friends, it is the fact that he had no enemies, that was his distinguishing hallmark,” former Union minister P Chidambaram said.