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Vajpayee did not attempt to break parties to continue in power: Rajnath Singh

Defence minister remembers former PM during his birth anniversary celebrations in Lucknow. Atal Bihari Vajpayee represented Lucknow as MP for five terms, now represented by Rajnath Singh

(File) Defence Minister Rajnath Singh

Atal Bihari Vajpayee did not just have an amazing personality, he was also blessed with great humility, Rajnath Singh said in Lucknow today.

Singh was speaking on the occasion of the opening ceremony of Atal Yuva Mahakumbh, a youth festival organized to mark former prime minister Vajpayee’s birth centenary. The former prime minister was a five-time MP from Lucknow, and perhaps the constituency’s most beloved too. Vajpayee was born on December 25, 1924.

Singh, who now represents Lucknow, shared some memories of Vajpayee’s ready wit and engaging personality.

He remembered the time when a female Pakistani journalist said that she would marry Vajpayee if he was ready to give Kashmir as muh dikhai (the first sighting of the bride by the groom). The ever-prompt Vajpayee said that he too would marry the lady in question if he got Pakistan in dowry. This is an incident from 1999, when Vajpayee had boarded the just started bus service from Amritsar to Lahore.

Another memory, which Singh shared, was from a time when someone told Vajpayee that though he had a winning personality, but was not firm. To which Vajpayee responded that his name was ‘Atal’, which means ‘firm’ in Hindi.

Singh also touched on the fall of the Vajpayee government in April 1999 by a single vote. The then PM had said that he would not attempt to break up any party so that his government could survive.

In his much-admired speech on the occasion, Vajpayee had said that governments would come and go, parties would be formed and erased, but the country’s democracy should go on unharmed. After the fall of the government, the opposition had been unable to muster a majority and the country saw another general election, barely one year after it had its last one.

The theme of the youth festival is ‘Qadam mila kar chalna hoga’ (We shall have to march together) and it includes debates, art and essay competitions, cultural programmes and performances by bands of various schools from the state capital.