A day after the BJP demanded Bharat Ratna for former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, it saw support pouring in from unexpected quarters. Ally-turned-foe Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar backed the demand saying Vajpayee deserves it while National Conference leader and UPA ally Farooq Abdullah made a strong pitch for the award to be conferred on the former PM, who, he said, was bigger than the award itself.
However, Nitish’s party colleague Shivanand Tiwari stoked a controversy saying Sachin Tendulkar did not play for free and why someone like hockey legend Dhyanchand was not given the award. This led BJP ally Shiv Sena to object. It asked whether the JD(U) leader wanted Bharat Ratna to be conferred on RJD chief lalu Prasad, currently in jail in a fodder scam case.
late in the evening, leader of the Opposition in lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj said Vajpayee should have been awarded Bharat Ratna much earlier. “If BJP comes to power, 100 per cent the award will be given to him,” she said.
On BJP’s call for Bharat Ratna for Vajpayee, Nitish said, “He deserves it. Why should not it be given to himIJ” Nitish served as the Railway Minister in the Vajpayee Cabinet. However, he also made a strong case for giving the award to Rammanohar lohia, his ideological guru and Karpoori Thakur, who was Chief Minister of the State in 1977.
But Nitish distanced himself from the statement of party leader Shivanand Tiwari regarding Sachin terming it as the latter’s “personal opinion”. “Everybody has an opinion,” he said. For his part, Abdullah, the New and Renewable Energy Minister, said he would make a “personal request” for bestowing the honour on Vajpayee. “I am not a BJP man but I am an Indian and I think no one can forget that he is a fine leader,” Abdullah said here.
“I must tell you that the first time he talked in lok Sabha, Jawaharlal (Nehru) ji went to him (Vajpayee) and said one day you will be the Prime Minister of this country.
Nehru said this when no one could think that he would be PM one day,” he said adding he would personally request that a such a big personality (Vajpayee), who is bigger than the Bharat Ratna, should be given the due honour and it should be given now itself. Expressing government’s view on the pitch for naming Vajpayee, Union I&B Minister Manish Tewari said there is a need to think with “seriousness” on Bharat Ratna when questions like his approach towards the Narendra Modi Government after the 2002 post-Godhra riots in Gujarat were still “hanging in the air.”
Abdullah’s National Conference (NC) was a part of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) but it left the fold after the Gujarat riots.
Shivanand Tewari said, “Sachin is a good player but he was paid a lot of money to do that. He didn’t play for free. Someone like Dhyanchand who won several medals for India at a time when we were not a free nation, this award was not given to him.” He also said that the government should stop giving the Bharat Ratna.
Reacting sharply, Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut said: “Even otherwise, Sachin is India’s Bharat Ratna. Does Tiwari suggest we give it to lalu Yadav insteadIJ Tiwari has no right to speak on Tendulkar. Sachin is part of India’s identity, Shivanand Tiwari is not.” The Shiv Sena also backed the BJP’s demand. “If Rajiv Gandhi can get it then why not Vajpayee,” Raut asked.