THOUGH a product of Hindutva politics, Atal Bihari Vajpayee was never identified with it. Few even in the BJP know that the term ‘pseudo secular’ was coined not by Advani, but by Vajpayee who used it first in a Jan Sangh souvenir in 1969.

But Vajpayee steered clear of the campaign which culminated in the demolition of the Babri Masjid. He resisted the move to start construction of a temple at Ayodhya, even at the cost of annoying the RSS and the VHP. The BJP, at his behest, put the three contentious issues—Ayodhya, Article 370 and a common civil code—on the shelf primarily to cobble together an alliance of over twenty parties. Indira Gandhi, V P Singh, Chandra Shekhar, Narasimha Rao, Deve Gowda and Gujral had run governments before, but Vajpayee institutionalised the arrangement for power-sharing by 22 parties. For the Congress to a make a serious bid to return to power in 2004, Sonia had to abandon her party’s earlier resolve to go it alone. She decided to emulate Vajpayee, aided and abetted, of course, by Surjeet.

Unlike other BJP politicians, Vajpayee has shared a special bond with leaders of other parties, particularly former Prime Ministers

P. V. Narasimha Rao and Chandra Shekhar. BJP-baiters like Lalu Prasad Yadav are personally critical of Advani, but not Vajpayee. In one of the no-confidence motions that Vajpayee faced as Prime Minister, Chandra Shekhar voted against him but negotiated the support of Akali Dal for the government.

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