KOLKATA: Few Prime Ministers could win people’s hearts in Bengal that has always been at odds with the Centre since the days of Partition. If Indira Gandhi had done it with her role during the Bangladesh Liberation War, Atal Bihari Vajpayee did it with his inclusive politics, his liberal face, gift of the gab, and the poet in him.Senior Kolkatans still recount the public traction Vajpayee got at Esplanade when this BJP leader had come to Kolkata following his resignation after running the government for 13 days in 1996 because his party could not garner a majority in the Lok Sabha. Vajpayee could make a sizeable section in the city feel that Vajpayee was a victim of numbers game. What’s more is this feeling of empathy helped BJP to get rid of the “untouchability” stigma in West Bengal. It is not without reason that the newborn Trinamool Congress went to the Lok Sabha elections as an NDA partner, contrary to the party’s position towards the Narendra Modi government now.Politics apart, people in Bengal can hardly forget Vajpayee government’s Golden Quadrilateral programme that gifted the state with the Durgapur Expressway in its present form.Chief minister Mamata Banerjee recalled her fond memories of working in the Vajpayee cabinet as railway minister. “I had a cordial relationship with Atalji. I hold him in high esteem. The way Atalji functioned was quite different from the manner the current BJP government functions. There is no similarity,” Mamata said, while leaving for Delhi. The CM recounted how Atalji as PM had come down to his Kalighat residence to see her mother Gayatri Devi in July 2000, Mamata said: “He had come to my home and I am grateful for that. Both families share a very cordial relationship.” During the visit, Vajpayee had touched Gayatri Devi’s feet.Vajpayee had the patience to agree to disagree and would always strive for a symphony among diverse opinions. “He was a statesman with a superb command over Hindi. He knew that Mamata Banerjee doesn’t subscribe to the BJP ideology. But he gave him space and had the warmth to bear with the opposite view. Mamata used to send him his favourite sweets from Bengal and a pair of dhoti and kurta during his birthday,” said Trinamool secretary general Partha Chatterjee. State urban development minister Firhad Hakim said: “Atalji’s birthday was on December 25. We used to ask Didi what has come from the Santa Clause (Atalji).” Even if he didn’t subscribe to their views, Vajpayee was never discourteous towards the opposition. When Jyoti Basu, then the Bengal CM, called the BJP “barbarians” after the demolition of the Babri Masjid , the PM once called Basu to Raj Bhavan and asked why he was calling BJP barbarians.Calling him a “liberalminded” person, former Trinamool MP Krishna Bose recounted her days in Parliament working with PM Vajpayee. “I was always criticising his party in Parliament over issues like saffronisation of education or Ram Mandir. On every such occasion, Vajpayee then Prime Minister, would come to me smilingly as soon as I finished my speech and shake hands with me,” Bose said. She also remembered the log discussions they used to have when both were admitted at Breach Candy Hospital for knee-replacement surgery.Tripura governor Tathagata Roy remembered a rarity that few people saw in Vajpayee. “PM Vajpayee came to Santiniketan after the Nobel medallion theft in January 2004. I saw him dressed in kurta-pajama when he used to wear dhoti and kurta. It made the headlines next day with captions that Vajpayee was into appeasing minorities,” Roy said. Calling him a politician with a “lion’s heart” Roy recounted how Atalji had taken back Mamata Banerjee in the ministry despite reservations in the party after Mamata Banerjee quit the railway ministry with utter contempt in 2000.

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