Jawaharlal Nehru predicted Atal Bihari Vajpayee would become PM 'one day'
New Delhi : Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru and Atal Bihari Vajpayee had quite a few things in common. Both Nehru and Vajpayee were the first leader from their respective parties to become the Prime Minister of India. As incumbent prime minister, Nehru had predicted that Vajpayee would occupy his seat "one day".
Before joining politics, Atal Bihari Vajpayee was a journalist. He worked for newspapers like Rashtra Dharma of RSS ideologue Deendayal Upadhyay, Panchjanya (the RSS mouthpiece in Hindi) and dailies - Veer Arjun and Swadesh.
Four years after becoming an RSS pracharak (full-time worker), Vajpayee got associated with the Bharatiya Jan Sangh (precursor to the BJP) in 1951. He was the political secretary to Syama Prasad Mookerjee, the BJS founder-president, when the latter launched campaign against the government's permit order for entering Jammu and Kashmir.
Atal Bihari Vajpayee was the one to pack the baggage for Mookerjee and saw him off at the Delhi railway station on 8 May 1953 as the BJS leader left on a mission to enter Jammu and Kashmir defying the entry permit order. Mookerjee was arrested on the Jammu and Kashmir border. He was found dead on 23 June in Srinagar jail under mysterious circumstances.
Vajpayee carried Mookerjee's message - "there can't be two law codes (vidhaan), two chiefs (pradhaan) and two symbols (nishaan) - for a bigger agitation to the rank and file of the party. Vajpayee became a full-time member of the BJS in 1953 after Mookerjee's death.
Vajpayee saw a meteoric rise in the BJS, which nominated him as a candidate in 1955 by-election for the Lucknow Lok Sabha seat, which had fallen vacant following resignation of Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, the sister of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru. Vajpayee's election campaign was noted for his impressive oratorical skills. He finished third in the bypoll.
Two years later, Vajpayee was nominated from three Lok Sabha seats in the second general elections by the BJS. Vajpayee won from Balrampur, finished runner-up in Lucknow and lost deposit at Mathura. Coming from a small party against the Congress of Pandit Nehru, Vajpayee performed exceptionally well as a debutant parliamentarian.
Vajpayee got the attention of Pandit Nehru with the range of questions that he raised in the Lok Sabha, speeches that he delivered and interventions that he made in the proceedings of the House. His range varied from international developments like German Unification to domestic laws.
Pandit Nehru was so influenced with his eloquence in Hindi that in 1957 he predicted Vajpayee to be the prime minister of India in future. While introducing Vajpayee to a foreign dignitary, Nehru said, "This young man one day will become the country's prime minister." Nehru's prediction came true almost 40 years later in 1990s.
Vajpayee, despite having told Nehru to "have a split personality", had tremendous respect for the first prime minister. When Vajpayee became the external affairs minister in 1977, he returned the favour that Nehru might have done by making "the PM prediction".
As Vajpayee was set to take charge of the external affairs ministry, the bureaucrats got busy with removing all the signs of Congress rule in the office as the Janata Party had won on a huge anti-Indira anti-Congress wave. On entering his office, Vajpayee was quick to notice a blank spot on the wall.
Historian Ramchandra Guha has quoted Vajpayee as telling his secretary, "This is where Panditji's portrait used to be. I remember it from my earlier visits to the room. Where has it gone? I want it back." Pandit Nehru remains the longest-serving foreign minister of India - 17 years.
courtesy : indiatoday.in
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4 workers die after inhaling toxic gas at chemical unit in Gujarat's Bharuch
Bharuch (Gujarat) (PTI): Four workers died on Sunday after inhaling toxic fumes following gas leakage at a chemical plant at Dahej in Gujarat's Bharuch district, police said.
The victims fell unconscious after inhaling the toxic fumes leaking from a pipe at a production unit of the Gujarat Fluorochemicals Limited (GFL) at around 10 pm on Saturday, Dahej police station inspector BM Patidar said.
They were rushed to a private hospital in Bharuch. Three of them died at around 3 am on Sunday, while another one succumbed at 6 am, the official said.
"The incident occurred at around 10 pm when the four workers fell unconscious due to gas leakage from the pipe passing through the ground floor of the company's CMS plant. They were rushed to a private hospital where all four of them died," he said.
The bodies were sent for postmortem and further probe into the incident was underway, the official said.
The deceased have been identified as Rajesh Kumar (hailing from Gujarat), Mudrika Yadav (belonging to Jharkhand), Sushit Prasad and Mahesh Nandlal (both from Uttar Pradesh), police said.
GFL, Dahej, Deputy General Manager Jignesh Parmar told reporters that they will investigate the matter and a compensation of Rs 25 lakh would be paid to the kin of each of the deceased workers.
"The company and the management are saddened by the incident. We have promised to cooperate with legal authorities and we will investigate the matter and bring out our report," he said.
Sub Divisional Magistrate, Bharuch, Manisha Manani said three of the deceased were from other states.
"Four persons died due to gas leakage at the GFL plant near Ambeta village. The bodies have been sent to the civil hospital in Bharuch for post-mortem and an investigation is underway," Manani said.
