Atal Bihari Vajpayee: A Man for All Seasons

by Kingshuk Nag

After the Gujarat riots of 2002, however, Atal seems to have lost out to the RSS. The organization gained ascendancy with the help of hardliners in the party as also the Sangh Parivar. The first indication of this came on 4 April 2002, when Atal visited Gujarat after the bloody riots in which one thousand people lost their lives. The riots had followed the burning of the compartment of a train that was bringing back kar sevaks from Ayodhya. The incident had happened on 27 February 2002. At a press conference Atal, with the Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi by his side, said that the government’s job was to practise rajadharma and kings and rulers cannot discriminate between people on the basis of birth, caste and religion. Unexpectedly, in what was seen as a snub, Modi said, ‘Wohi toh nibha rahein hain [That’s what we are doing].’ The audience was shocked and Atal kept quiet.