Beyond politics: Lucknow’s Atal connection lives on
Back in 2004, when Vajpayee contested his last election from Lucknow, prominent poets of the country, including Bashir Badr, came to Lucknow to associate with Atal Fan Club and campaign for him.
Manish Upadhyaya, a small-time worker at a shop in the old city had performed all the last rites that a son has to do on his father’s death, after the demise of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in 2018.
That’s simply because he considered the bachelor Vajpayee, who represented Lucknow for a record five terms in Lok Sabha, to be a “father figure” and felt an “irresistible” bond with him.
He couldn’t be contacted on Sunday but while people admitted that such love for a politician is rare, they said it was not uncommon to bump into people who, irrespective of their political affiliations, still swear by “Atalji” as the stalwart is referred to, years after his passing away.
Vajpayee, whose birth anniversary will be celebrated on Monday, is all pervasive. Many Lucknow landmarks bear his imprint or name. They include the Lok Bhavan office where his life-size statue, unveiled by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2019. Then, there is the Scientific Convention Centre at the old city, his last gift to Lucknow.
“We continue to get proposals from corporators, cadres and commoners requesting us that a particular building, lane or block be named after the great leader,” said Lucknow mayor Sushma Kharkwal on Vajpayee who, at 33 years, had first entered Parliament in 1957. In politics, where out of sight usually means out of mind, Vajpayee’s amazingly high recall value surprises one and all.
This is more so in the state capital from whose old city where he would regularly order “doodh ki barfi (sweets made from milk)” when he was in Delhi.
He loved Lucknow’s culinary delights. During his visits, he would often head to the old city residence of his protege Lalji Tandon, who succeeded him as the Lucknow MP, for a lavish ‘Lakhnawi treat.’ His Lucknow-connect was so apparent.
In 2009, Lalji Tandon, who had gone to Delhi to seek the former prime minister’s blessings before his Lok Sabha campaign, had famously remarked, “I have come back with Atalji’s khadau (footwear)!”.
Sometime later, contesting an assembly by-poll, BJP leader late Amit Puri, too, had rushed to Delhi before his campaign and returned with a “kurta” that he said was gifted to him by “Atalji”.
Many young and upcoming leaders of the time like Shailendra Sharma got the nickname “Atal” as they started modelling their speeches on Vajpayee’s style that was famous for its punches and pregnant pauses.
“Atalji once asked me why I spoke like him? I told him because I admired him much. He advised me to create my own identity,” recalled Sharma.
Back in 2004, when Vajpayee contested his last election, prominent poets of the country, including Bashir Badr, came to Lucknow to campaign for him. “That was the time when many considered Muslims won’t vote for BJP. We set up the Atal Fan Club and campaigned among the community which showered their love on the great leader,” Athar Nabi, the organiser of the Atal Club, had once told HT. BJP’s Rajya Sabha MP and former deputy CM Dinesh Sharma still lapses into the past while recalling how an ailing “Atalji” campaigned despite running fever to ensure his win as Lucknow’s mayor in 2006.
“He was the ajat-shatru (man without any enemies) of politics. We all have grown up hearing his speeches that left us mesmerised,” said deputy CM Brajesh Pathak who set up the Atal Bihari Vajpayee Foundation that hosts functions and looks after people’s welfare.
“It is amazing when you consider that much before his death in 2018, ill health led him to bow out of active politics after 2004... He is a great example of a politician who made a place for himself in the hearts of the common man and perhaps had friends across political spectrum,” said prof Manuka Khanna of the political science department of Lucknow University.
Defence minister Rajnath Singh, the Lucknow MP, once told this correspondent, “None of my speeches are complete without a mention of Atalji.”
In 2021, during a visit to Lucknow, Rajnath had admonished the cadre when he saw Atal’s face missing from posters put up by the party for the event.
In 2022, during a campaign, Samajwadi Party chief and former CM Akhilesh Yadav too had invoked Vajpayee to target the BJP.
Is he relevant still? “Leaders like Atalji would never go out of fashion. They are perennial, timeless. Lucknow and Atalji are inseparable,” said Samajwadi Party leader IP Singh.