Vajpayee respected people with different political views: Kerala Governor

Former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee was a politician who respected even those with diametrically opposite political views. He was a person with integrity who was also able to integrate with everyone around him, Kerala Governor Arif Mohammed Khan recalled.

Khan was delivering the fourth Atal Bihari Vajpayee lecture as part of ‘Religion, Culture and Secularism Debates’, organised by India Foundation.

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He recalled how in his younger days he was not a BJP sympathiser. “Yet I would attend all of Vajpayee’s speeches just to listen to his oration,” he said. He narrated an anecdote on how in the Parliament, he had to once defend the Congress government on allegations of election irregularities. “I had to speak after Vajpayee, who had presented comprehensive facts and figures,” he said.

Even though Khan countered Vajpayee in his debate, the leader later invited him for a cup of coffee, he narrated, adding that albeit being in Congress, he always maintained good relations with Vajpayee.

“He was a man who had deeply imbibed Sanatan culture,” Khan said, in his tribute to Vajpayee.

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