Nation lost a true statesman, says Manoranjan Kalia

Deepkamal Kaur

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, August 16

Remembering Bharat Ratna Atal Bihari Vajpayee- an astute leader, a great statesman and a visionary on his demise on Thursday, former BJP state chief and Punjab ex-minister Manoranjan Kalia called Vajpayee an institution in himself.

Sharing his old pictures with Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Kalia recalled that Vajpayee never did politics for power. Vajpayee had a multi-faceted personality. He was a noble politician, a matchless orator, a poet and above all, a person who had a heart full of human kindness.

“If the first Prime Minister of India Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru is being remembered as a ‘Builder of Modern India’, Atal Bihari Vajpayee will be remembered as builder of “Powerful India”. It was during his tenure as Prime Minister of India that India won the Kargil War. Indian economy also flourished a lot under his tenure as PM. It was only because of him that a stronger network of roads called Golden Quadrilateral was initiated across the country,” he said.

Cutting across the party lines, leaders of all parties expressed their condolence on his demise. Former minister and PPCC Vice President Avtar Henry too condoled the demise of ex-PM Vajpayee. “We have lost a great thinker and a tall politician today,” he said in his message.

A retired IFS officer and an Ambassador of India Ramesh Chander also grieved the demise of the former PM and said, “I have had opportunity to meet and interact with him in the course of service in the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) and the PMO. I was greatly impressed by his personality and charm even in my formative years in Jalandhar when Atal Bihari Vajpayee did a road show in an open horse-driven Baghi (carriage) in 1968.

He also added, “Thereafter, while working as the Minister of External Affairs, I distinctly remember Vajpayee interacting with his Russian counterpart in Hindi and the terminology he used, referring to the traditional friendship between India and the USSR, he said “Ganga aur Volga mein bahut paani beh chukka hai, ab waqt hai hum aage badein aur apni mitrata ko majboot karein”. It was a pleasant change in our approach to take pride in our national language.”