Lalji Tandon, a people’s man who loved Lucknow
LUCKNOW : About a month ago, Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath called on an ailing Lalji Tandon, the governor of Madhya Pradesh. Lying on a hospital bed in Lucknow, Tandon discussed development projects for the impoverished Bundelkhand region that stretches across the two heartland states.
“I am in Raj Bhawan and can push some projects,” Tandon told Adityanath.
That was not to be. The 85-year-old veteran Bharatiya Janata Party leader died early Tuesday morning after spending nearly six weeks in hospital for breathing problems, fever and kidney and liver complications. He is survived by his wife and three sons.
His life and four-decadelong political career ended in the city he lived in and loved.
In Lucknow, thousands knew him personally and he knew them by their first names. He was known for his love of local delicacies, his culinary prowess and his revival of the Lucknow Holi procession, where Muslims and Hindus participated with equal vigour, underlining the unique Ganga-jamuni syncretism of the city.
He forayed into electoral politics in 1971 after being elected corporator from old Lucknow. A two-time member of the Legislative Council, the state Upper House, and three-time member of the legislative assembly, Tandon quickly grew used to comfortably win elections from the Muslim-dominated Lucknow West assembly constituency. He won his first assembly election in 1978.
At the height of the Ram temple movement in the 90s that propelled the BJP to power in Uttar Pradesh, many crucial meetings were held at Tandon’s Mall Avenue residence, which also became the nerve centre for talks between the BJP and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) ahead of the shortlived coalition government in 1997. In 2002, when the
BJP extended outside support to BSP and Mayawati became chief minister for the third time, Tandon became her “rakhi” brother. The relationship between the two parties soured within a year, but he laughed away the criticism.
His personal moment of pride came in 2009 when he inherited mentor and former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s Lok Sabha seat of Lucknow. An emotional Tandon described himself as Atal’s ‘khadau’ (slippers). By then, he had served as cabinet minister in UP thrice, holding the power, urban development, housing, and finance portfolios, among others. He would go on to win the Lok Sabha elections by over 40,000 votes.ahead of the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, Tandon handed over Vajpayee’s
constituency to defence minister Rajnath Singh. His son Ashutosh Tandon became a cabinet minister in 2017 and holds the urban development portfolio.
In May 2018, Tandon became the governor of Bihar, before moving on to Madhya Pradesh in July 2019.
In Lucknow, innumerable tales circulate about his close relationship with Vajpayee, with whom he shared a passion for Lucknow’s unique culture and cuisine. Their ties were summed up by state cabinet minister Surya Pratap Shahi at the launch of Tandon’s book in May 2018: “I remember how difficult it was to meet Atalji without Tandon’s nod,” Shahi said.
He was of the opinion that secularism ran in the blood of Lucknowites. .
When asked why he hadn’t written a book on Lucknow cuisine, Tandon once said, “No chef or cook can give information on Lucknow cuisine or spices as I can -- the real taste of
Awadh. Do you know there are 1,000 types of sweets, 20 kinds of ‘laddoos’, ‘rabri’ and ‘malai’?” The book, Ankaha Lucknow, which talked about the history, architecture and cuisine of the city, was launched by vice president Venkaiah Naidu in May 2018. “This book tells the real story of Lucknow. It may create some controversies too. But history can’t be distorted; truth cannot be hidden,” Tandon had told this author. That was Lalji Tandon, a people’s man who didn’t hesitate to call a spade a spade.