Mumbai: From a coffee table book to a student fellowship to a Vajpayee chair at all universities, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Maharashtra has planned an elaborate programme to commemorate its tallest leader who passed away last week.
Senior BJP leader and Maharashtra finance minister Sudhir Mungantiwar told reporters that the urn carrying Vajpayee’s ashes would be brought to Mumbai on Wednesday by Union minister Piyush Goyal, state BJP president Raosaheb Danve, and Mumbai unit president Ashish Shelar.
“Atalji’s ashes would be immersed in 11 major rivers of the state at 13 cities and towns. Atalji had a very fond and affectionate relationship with Maharashtra. It was here in Mumbai on 6 April 1980, that Atalji have us the slogan that said ‘andhera chhatega, suraj niklega, kamal khilega (darkness will fade away, the sun will rise, and the lotus will bloom). The slogan has proved to be prophetic,” Mungantiwar said.
A condolence meeting will be held on Wednesday at the NCPA auditorium. Mungantiwar said the BJP wanted to put together a coffee table book on Vajpayee and wanted people in Maharashtra to share rare photographs and memories of the former prime minister in the next 30 days. “The coffee table book will introduce Atalji to the current generation and future generations,” he said.
The Maharashtra government has also decided to set up a chair on Vajpayee’s thoughts in all 13 universities in the state. “The government has decided to allocate Rs 20 crore for this. This chair will be dedicated to studying Atalji’s thoughts, his performance as foreign minister and prime minister, his political ideology, and his poetry,” Mungantiwar said.
The Maharashtra BJP will also sponsor a fellowship for students interested in pursuing doctoral studies on Vajpayee’s thoughts. Mungantiwar said the party would give Rs 3 lakh each to a maximum of ten students.
Besides these commemorative initiatives, the BJP-ruled municipal corporations and local self-government bodies will adopt resolutions to console Vajpayee’s demise, he said. All-party condolence meetings are being held in all districts of Maharashtra. Mungantiwar said two auditoriums being built in Latur and Ballarpur would be named after Vajpayee.
A senior BJP leader said the initiatives planned so far constitute only a “small part of the BJP’s big year-long commemoration”. “We want to take Atalji to each and every resident of Maharashtra. He deserves to be remembered that way,” the BJP leader said requesting anonymity. He pointed out that the emotive political value of this remembrance could not be overstated.