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Below the Quote on A Tribute to Atal Bihari Vajpayee Ji by Dr. Manoranjan Sharma, Chief Economist, Infomerics Ratings

Vajpayee ji was a towering and visionary leader and an able statesman. He was a democrat to the core and despite his strong political and ideological differences with the Congress and the left Parties, he had friends and admirers on both sides of the aisle. 

He was an able and effective administrator and much to the chagrin of the Western powers, stood his ground during the difficult days when India went nuclear. 

He was a reasonably good Speaker in the English language (he was fond of NYT(New York Times) thrillers and best-sellers) but he excelled in the Hindi language as exemplified in his iconic debates in the Indian Parliament and other places, his extraordinary sense of wit, humour and his remarkable poems in Hindi. To my mind, he was the most eloquent Speaker in the Hindi language in our generation with his stirring thoughts, choice of words and expressions and what was most characteristic of him- his long pauses something like a computer processing voluminous data and information to arrive at the right response. 

He could be devastatingly critical of his opponents without ever hitting below the belt. His strongest disapproval of his critics in the highest democratic tradition was “yeh acchi baat nahi hai”,  i.e., this is not a good thing. 

He was possibly the tallest leader of our generation- a leader, who consolidated the process of economic reforms initiated by PV Narasimha Rao and strengthened India’s position in the comity of nations.

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