Uttar Pradesh poll diary: Vajpayee aide by Rajnath's side

The enormity of the event and its symbolism in Indian polity was not lost on anyone on board as Rajnath Singh travelled to Lucknow, his first visit to city after being nominated to contest the Lok Sabha elections from the UP capital.

In the entourage was a burly, moustachioed man with a slight limp in his gait. Rajnath Singh made way and ushered in Shiv Kumar on board the plane. Former PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee's loyal private secretary Shiv Kumar trudged in leaning heavily on his walking stick. For those who remember former PM's tenure would surely recollect Shiv Kumar accompanying Vajpayee just about everywhere. Shiv Kumar was Vajpayee's private secretary, loyalist, Man Friday and care-taker all rolled into one.

"He was a leader who would stand by his people and his workers. Had a big heart and would listen to the people around him," Shiv Kumar reminisced.

We get talking. I ask him about the 1984 debacle of the BJP when party under Vajpayee's stewardship was pulverised to mere two seats in the aftermath of Indira Gandhi's assassination.

"Even in face of adversity Atalji would never lose his sense of humour," Shiv Kumar wistfully recalls.

"The results do not auger well for the Congress," a poker faced Vajpayee told a group of despondent looking party workers who had come to meet him all the way from his constituency.

"What followed was his in-imitable and pregnant pause. And then he delivered the punchline: Wo jahan hein usse upar nahin ja sakte, aur hum jahan hein usse hum neeche nahin ja sakte," he added.

Shiv Kumar has been with Vajpayee since 1969, the year he left his legal practice work to be full time with the former. Vajpayee's association with Lucknow goes back to 1953 when Deen Dayal Upadhyay's disciple contested the Lucknow Lok Sabha by-election.

The importance and symbolism of both Vajpayee and Shiv Kumar are not lost on the BJP president as he claims Atal's Lucknow legacy.

No wonder, in his first interaction with media after lending at the Amausi Airport he appealed to Muslims in Lucknow to give him one with Vajpayee's Shiv Kumar by his side.