‘Kant was like a lotus in muddy waters of politics’

Cardiologists tried to resuscitate him at AIIMS with external and internal pace-maker systems. He was declared dead at 8.45 am.

Among the first to arrive at the hospital to pay their respects were President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee, Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani. Congress president Sonia Gandhi drove to his residence.

Vajpayee’s condolence message read: ‘‘He was like a lotus in the muddy waters of politics.’’ Advani recalled his ‘‘personal equation’’ with Kant: ‘‘I have seen him playing various roles in public life and I have always admired him in each one of them.”

After the embalming, Kant’s body was shifted to his residence where he will lie in state before being taken to Nigambodh Ghat for cremation between 4 and 5 pm.

People in hundreds thronged his Maulana Azad Road residence to console the grieving family. Kant’s mother Satyawati sat weeping and cradling her son’s body, never leaving him.

Kant only wore clothes made from the yarn Satyawati would spin on her charkha. ‘‘Every February 28, his birthday, she presented him with five sets of kurta-pyjama, which he wore for the rest of the year,’’ a family member said.

Senior officials of the RS Secretariat were not surprised that Kant was working late. ‘‘He cleared files the day they were sent to him. If a file was with him for more than a day, it meant he wanted to discuss it.’’