( From top left) Vajpayee with Advani, Uma and Modi at a vijay sankalp rally in New Delhi on Friday. (PTI pictures)

New Delhi, Feb. 6: M. Venkaiah Naidu sees Atal Bihari Vajpayee as the leader who showed “that our dreams are for real, who told us we cannot be second-best, inspired us to think big and made it proud to be Made in India”.

Kalyan Singh believes the Prime Minister’s “popularity and idealism”, which have “already touched new heights”, will reach their zenith “when he becomes incomparable”. To Uma Bharti, Vajpayee is “Vishnu incarnate”. For Narendra Modi, if India has moved ahead, it is only because of him.

L.K. Advani concluded by pointing out that it was an “universal assessment of all psephologists” that the electorate would give Vajpayee a clear five-year mandate again.

Pramod Mahajan amplified Advani’s prediction, saying: “Atalji was the Prime Minister in the 11th, 12th and 13th Lok Sabha. If on May 14 he takes oath as the Prime Minister of the 14th Lok Sabha, he will become the first Prime Minister to take oath four consecutive times.

“In cricket, honestly no one has broken Don Bradman’s record till today. Atal Bihari Vajpayee will set such a record in political leadership and then no one will have the strength to break it for the next 25 years.”

The BJP’s national council was called today to formally ratify the re-election of Naidu as party chief for a three-year tenure. But it ended up marking the launch of the party’s election campaign on a one-point plank: Vajpayee.

Party sources admitted nobody is abashed any more about the personality cult — a point the BJP has always held against the Congress.

Naidu, who bent over backwards to please Vajpayee during his hour-long speech after sparking off the leadership controversy with his “vikas purush-loh purush (development man versus iron man)” remark last year, confirmed the perception in his party that he owed his second-term largely to the Prime Minister.

Vajpayee buttressed the belief in his subtle way: “Very few know that Venkaiah did not want a second term as the president. He told me that the Assembly elections (of November 2003) are over, the BJP has won and whatever I could do, I did. Let someone else take over. I said: ‘You cannot leave, I will not grant you a vacation. There is lot of hard work to be done, so how can you proceed on leave'’ He listened to me. Today, he has been re-elected and I am confident he will galvanise the party to success.”

Naidu was quick to proclaim: “In this election, there are only three issues: development, development, faster development; Vajpayee, Vajpayee, Vajpayee; India, India, India.”

Although he did not say “India is Vajpayee, Vajpayee India”, the BJP chief came close enough to D.K. Barooah’s notorious display of sycophancy. “Before the 1998 parliamentary elections, we had described Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee as ‘The Man India Awaits’. Today, we can proudly say that he is ‘The Statesman India Adores and the World Admires’.”

Naidu’s next burst of praise was: “People say neta (leader) means Atal Bihari Vajpayee, we say Prime Minister means Atal Bihari Vajpayee.”

If this was not adulation enough, Naidu came up with more: “The Prime Minister is our symbol, the BJP is his army.”

If Vajpayee’s profile as the BJP’s leader nonpareil was established, Naidu’s graph went up by leaps and bounds. He has replaced Murli Manohar Joshi as the third face of the BJP triumvirate with Vajpayee and Advani.

Uma Bharti reinforced this position with a mythological analogy. “Vajpayee, Advani and Naidu are our Brahma, Vishnu and Mahesh. Advani created a new political idiom in 1991 when, as leader of the Opposition, he stated on the floor of the House that he was proud to be a Hindu and that being a Hindu did not mean being communal. He is Brahma. Vishnu was concerned with people’s well-being. Banke Bihari Krishna is supposed to be an avatar of Vishnu so Vajpayee is Vishnu. Naidu is Bholanath because he systematically destructed the Congress.”