Former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee had a sweet tooth and used to like G. Pulla Reddy sweets and whenever his then Cabinet colleague Bandaru Dattatreya used to go to New Delhi, he never failed to take a packet and present to him. But, that is not the only attachment Mr. Vajpayee had with the capital city.
BJP leaders recall that he invariably addressed public meetings in either Hyderabad or Secunderabad during his years in the Opposition during the election time, during the Emergency and later as the Prime Minister too in places as diverse as Barkas, Clock Tower, Nizam College Grounds, Parade Grounds and Lal Bahadur Stadium.
In fact, some of the landmark buildings and events were held during his time at the helm like the foundation stone for the Indian School of Business, launching the housing programme for the poor ‘Valmiki Ambedkar Awas Yojana or Vambay’ and when the National Games were held in a grand scale at the newly constructed sports complex at Gachibowli.
“I consider myself fortunate to have worked with him closely as general secretary and later to be part of his Cabinet. He treated everyone equally, senior or junior, always affable and never overbearing. He was in a way instrumental in me joining politics as he appreciated my service as a RSS volunteer during the devastating cyclone in 1977,” recalls Mr. Dattatreya.
Telangana party president K. Laxman was acquainted with the former PM when he was city chief and had received him at the Secunderabad Railway Station in the 80s. Prior to that Mr. Vajpayee is said to have visited Musheerabad area too and he feels especially elated that around 3,000 houses were built for the poor in the nationwide launch of Vambay scheme happened when he was the MLA.
Interestingly, Mr. Vajpayee also attended the BJP national executive meeting held in then Hotel Viceroy in 2004 when the then CM N. Chandrababu Naidu visited the PM more than once to convince him to allow the State to have an advanced poll along with the general elections. “The PM was reluctant,” claims Mr. Laxman.
“Mr. Vajpayee was a lovely multi-faceted person. Hyderabad had immensely benefited with his government focus on infrastructure development like highyways, telecom, airports, etc.,” says MLC N. Ramachandra Rao.
MLA G. Kishan Reddy, N. Indrasena Reddy and others also condoled his death. After paying floral tributes to the portrait of the former PM at the party office, all the top party leaders from the State took off to Delhi to attend the funeral.
