Thousands line streets for funeral of late Indian leader
NEW DELHI, Aug 18 (AFP) - Thousands of mourners in white funereal dress escorted the coffin of three-time prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee through the Indian capital on Friday, showering his body in rose petals before his cremation. Vajpayee, a poet and spellbinding orator respected across the political divide in India, died Thursday after a long period of declining health. He was 93.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who described Vajpayee's passing as “a per- sonal and irreplaceable loss”, lead the procession through Delhi to the leafy cremation grounds near the sacred Yamuna River. Senior c a d re s f rom Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the ruling party that Vajpayee nurtured into power, mourned alongside foreign dignitaries including Bhutan's king and Afghanistan's former leader Hamid Karzai.
He was placed on a sandalwood pyre set alight by his foster daughter, as family poured sacred grains on the burning logs and incantations were recited by Hindu priests. Mourners had lined the streets for hours to catch a glimpse as Vajpayee's coffin, wrapped inthe Indian tricolour flag, made its final sombre journey. Despite not making a public appearance in years, Vajpayee continued to inspire devotion in many parts of the country, especially in key bellwether Hinduheartland states in north and central India.
“It was India's poor who lived in his heart and who he worked for,” said a mourner on a Delhi streetside, Rajkumar Tripathi, who turned out to farewell Vajpayee. “He was a poet and a writer, but all his literature was based on the common man and his aspirations.” Vajpayee was seen as a more moderate face of Hindu nationalism during his time in office, although he struggled to hold back the more hardline members of the BJP who went on to run the party and the current government.