Team News Riveting
New Delhi, October 21
Former Prime Minister Atal Bihar Vajpayee completed a task that his predecessor P V Narasimha Rao could not finish.
Soon after Vajpayee took the baton from Rao, the latter also handed over a slip, Ashok Tandon revealed in new book ‘The Reverse Swing: Colonialism to Cooperation’. Tandon was Vajpayee’s media advisor from 1998 to 2004.
Tandon penned in the book that ex-PM Narasimha Rao handed over a chit to Atal Bihari Vajpayee after he became the Prime Minister in 1996 that mentioned about “unfinished task” (nuclear test) to be accomplished.
“After Vajpayee’s appointment as prime minister, Rao quietly passed on a chit to Vajpayee at the Rashtrapati Bhavan swearing-in ceremony. It was a hint to accomplish the unfinished task. The task Narasimha Rao had failed to accomplish during his premiership was nothing other than nuclear tests at Pokhran in the Rajasthan desert,” Tandon said.
Vajpayee first term in 1996 lasted for just 13 days. However, he became the Prime Minister again in 1998 and continued in the post till 2004. The Vajpayee government in May 1998 conducted the test in Rajasthan’s Pokhran with code name “Operation Shakti”.
Ashok Tandon’s ‘The Reverse Swing: Colonialism to Cooperation’ was released by Union Minister for Petroleum-Natural Gas and Housing and Urban Affairs, Hardeep Singh Puri, in an event organised in Delhi on October 18.
In another chapter, Tandon said Vajpayee turned down suggestions to become President in 2002. He rejected the suggestions from his team to step down from the Prime Ministership and allow L K Advani to succeed. Vajpayee was offered the post of President.
Tandon said Vajpayee said a sitting Prime Minister becoming the President would “set a very dangerous precedent” and would not go down well in a Parliamentary democracy like India.
