NEW DELHI: Disappointed mourners who had stood for hours outside the BJP office to pay their last respects to former PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee at Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Marg found unusual “rahis”. PM Narendra Modi, BJP chief Amit Shah and several senior party members joined thousands of common people in the funeral procession for the late PM. The cortege started from the party office at 2pm but took almost two hours to reach Smriti Sthal, a distance of nearly 5km.

Chief ministers Vijay Rupani, Shivraj Chouhan, Yogi Adityanath and Devendra Fadnavis were among those who walked behind the cortege as it slowly made its way to the cremation ground.

Modi’s decision to walk the distance, which caught the security apparatus unawares, appeared to link him to the legacy of the first saffron PM who, according to some, practised a kind of politics different from the one being pursued by the incumbent. Modi and Shah are considered to have transformed the BJP they inherited from Vajpayee and his close colleague, former deputy PM L K Advani.

For the party faithful, however, the difference, if any, did not seem to matter as Modi and Shah became part of the throng of mourners. This was perhaps the first time that a PM had walked as part of a funeral procession.

As the procession passed by, people shouted slogans of ‘Atal Bihari amar rahe’, “Jab tak sooraj chand rahega, Atalji ka naam rahega’, punctuated by patriotic cheers of ‘Bharat mata ki jai’ and ‘Vande mataram’.

Many of those who had been waiting for hours outside the party office jostled and ran beside the carriage to pay their tributes. Both sides of the carriageway of busy roads like DDU Marg and Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg had been closed for traffic and was filled with a sea of mourners. Many showered petals as the cavalcade went by. Heavy security was deployed along the route of the procession.

BJP worker R K Singh, who had come from Jaunpur in Uttar Pradesh, recalled meeting the former PM when he was barely 10. “Panditji visited Jaunpur and we were all so excited that we bunked school to meet him. We were all punished for it by the principal but I joined the RSS that day itself,” he said. Akash Tripathi, who had reached Vajpayee’s Krishna Menon Marg residence and walked with the convoy for a few kilometres, said, "I have come with my daughter from Banaras so that she can get a glimpse of a great leader the country has lost. I was a teenager when the Kargil war happened and have been telling my daughter about the war when she wants to listen to stories of my childhood. She wanted to meet the hero of the war."

Two big LED screens were placed on DDU Marg but some clambered on trees or barricades to get a better view of the cortege.

