I wish I had gone and met him

Circa 1998: After filing his nomination papers here in Lucknow, Atal Bihari Vajpayee said poetically, ‘If you want me as PM, then make me the MP.’

Atal, the politician, made a factual statement but the poet in him could not hide the pain of losing the Prime Minister’s chair in 13 days. Despite short of the majority mark, the then President had invited Vajpayee to form the government but he had failed to muster the requisite numbers.

He was home, his Lok Sabha constituency Lucknow, where he had spent many evenings chatting with his friends and mesmerising the people with his oratory. His interactions with scribes were frequent and he served news on platter, often leaving a lot for interpretation.

It was also not his first election. He had been winning from Lucknow since 1991 and he was last elected from here in 2004. His protégé Lalji Tandon inherited his constituency in 2009 but needed his letter of support to win the seat. Union home minister Rajnath Singh currently represents Lucknow.

Ironically, the same Lucknow had defeated him twice in 1952 and 1957 as the Bharatiya Jan Sangh candidate.

I remember covering almost all the elections he contested since 1991. They usually lacked spice as the people declared the result the day he filed his candidature -- rarely did he return for campaigning. Opposition filed Lilliputians against this political giant.

Twice he faced stars from the film world, Raj Babbar in 1996 and Muzaffar Ali in 1998. A few years later, political parties, including the BJP, started taking services of Bollywood stars in election campaigns. Thus, when he was asked to comment on the new poll practice, Vajpayee had taken a long pause and said, ‘Don’t compare them with me. You will be doing injustice to them’. He dwarfed the best of cine stars in his dramatic oratory that pulled the crowds as well as the scribes.

I somehow was fascinated by his wit, as and when I met him. He was the Prime Minister when Hindustan Times had launched an interactive campaign to ‘Save Lucknow’ in which public was invited to send in their views.

Later, we submitted the problems and suggestions to him here at Raj Bhawan. He saw me, smiled and quipped, ‘There she comes with her innumerable questions.’ He gracefully accepted the thick memorandum and diligently followed the action taken by the authorities.

A few months after he had won Lucknow but lost the national election in 2004, I met him in New Delhi where he agreed to give an interview. As PM he had been upset with my write up on 50 per cent broken promises that he had made for his constituency.

When I met him, there were no signs of any annoyance. Instead, he welcomed and remembered the comment, ‘You will certainly win but with a lesser margin.’

His love for Lucknow laced the interview but a few comments were political. He recalled listening to Jawaharlal Nehru the first time at the Jhandewalan Park in Lucknow. “The crowds were huge and unmanageable. Pant ji (referring to GB Pant) was trying to control them. Nehru couldn’t stop himself; sprightly he came on the dais to control the crowds.”

He had refrained from commenting on politics as he had lost the 2004 elections which his party was confident of winning by their slogan of India Shining. Again the poet , not the politician, could not hide the feelings when he said: “Pehle ki rajneeti mein to nazakat, nafasat hoti thi, aaj to 365 din Holi kheli jaati hai’ (there used to be sobriety and politeness in the politics of yesteryears, today people play Holi all 365 days).”

Perhaps it was political courtesy that Sonia Gandhi and Atal Bihari Vajpayee never crossed each other’s constituency during elections.

I planned to meet him again later when he was ailing . I had requested for the same but senior BJP leaders dissuaded me saying, ‘Why do you want to meet him? He won’t recognise you’.

I regret my decision to abide by their advice today.