Punjab’s five-time Chief Minister and Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) patron Parkash Singh Badal on Tuesday visited the residence of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who breathed his last on August 16, to express his deep condolences with the Bharat Ratna awardee’s family members. Badal described the late leader as a friend of Punjab and Punjabis.
While interacting with Vajpayee’s family members, including daughter Namita Kaul Bhattacharya, Badal said that Punjabis would never forget the generosity shown to the state by the late Prime Minister.
Giving two examples, he said that during the run up to 350th anniversary of the birth of the Khalsa, Vajpayee not only asked the State what it wanted but also allocated Rs 100 crore to celebrate the occasion in a befitting manner.
Badal said that similarly when he approached the late Prime Minister and told him how repeated Congress governments had discriminated against the State and made out a case for allocation of a refinery to Punjab, Vajpayee took a decision on this request within five days and allocated Punjab Rs 16,000 crore Bathinda refinery project.
Accompanied by his daughter-in-law and the Union Minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal and Rajya Sabha MP Naresh Gujral, Badal also spoke about Vajpayee’s secular nature during the course of the meeting detailing how he had opposed the massacre of Sikhs in Delhi and even paid for this by losing the subsequent election from Gwalior.
Badal, who is still recovering from viral due to which he could not participate in Vajpayee’s last rites, also recalled how the late Prime Minister had implicit faith in SAD and vice versa.
He said that the former Prime Minister would often say that if there was one alliance partner whose support he could bank upon implicitly, it was the SAD.
He also recalled how Vajpayee had displayed nerves of steel by going ahead with the Pokharan nuclear test besides talking about his sterling leadership qualities during the Kargil battle.