Atal Bihari Vajpayee (top); LK Advani

New Delhi, Feb. 21: L.K. Advani once had to stand back for Atal Bihari Vajpayee to become Prime Minister, which many in the Sangh say he never forgot. Today, he wanted to make way for “Atalji” on his own — not for premiership, but poetry.

At a release of a book of poems written by Najma Heptullah, Advani, once called the lauh purush (Iron Man) of the BJP, became nostalgic about Vajpayee, now ailing, bedridden and rarely heard of in public. “Had Atalji been in better health, I would have asked him to release (the collection). Because I have never written a poem in my life, although I know most of Atalji’s poems by heart.”

The praise flowed on. “Atalji was truly an outstanding poet. I remember one verse of his on how lonely it feels to be on the top,” Advani recalled.

“The higher one reaches, the more lonely he becomes, he has to bear all the load, he has to forcibly plaster a smile on his face, but weep silently in his heart.”

The poem is called Unchai (Heights).

Was the nostalgia a result of the adverse notice he got from the party for sending a note of apology to Sonia Gandhi? It’s tough to tell.

Sangh and BJP insiders often say that the two were almost inseparable in their youth in the Jan Sangh, the BJP’s progenitor.

Vajpayee had earned a cachet as an orator but there was little else to him.

As RSS pracharaks and later Jan Sangh members living in west Delhi, they watched films, especially Phir Subah Hogi because the title was inspirational. That was the time when the BJP was down to two seats in Parliament.

Advani, always a disciplinarian, adhered to a diet of khichdi that he himself cooked and yoghurt. Vajpayee was the opposite. The foodie of the two, he loved the culinary delights of Old Delhi.

The first hint of a political rivalry between them surfaced after the BJP’s rout in the 1984 elections.

The RSS decided to dump Vajpayee when it realised that his pontifications on Gandhian socialism and his occasional praise for Indira Gandhi had stripped the party of its core identity. It chose to invest in the political capital of Advani.

Advani and the Sangh ushered in the Ram Janmabhoomi era, which pole-vaulted the BJP to power.

Advani was the BJP’s undeclared prime ministerial candidate until a combination of impatience to make it to the Centre and practical considerations forced the RSS to opt for the more affable and ideologically flexible Vajpayee as its public face in 1995.

The man who had single-handedly propelled the BJP from nothing to a force never got over this, BJP insiders insist.

Despite public celebrations of their fabled friendship, anybody who covered the NDA years knew that the relationship never peaked to the confidence level they may once have shared as swayamsevaks.

Vajpayee made Advani the deputy Prime Minister, only under the Sangh’s pressure.

Advani dutifully called on Vajpayee on his birthday every year, but that was it.

Today, though, was different.

At the book launch — in the audience was film star Aamir Khan who is former Rajya Sabha deputy chairperson Najma’s nephew — Advani said he had two regrets in life. The first, he never learnt Sanskrit, the second he had nothing to do with poetry.

He then went on to recite Unchai from memory, ending with: “My God, don’t ever send me soaring to such heights, that I cannot embrace others. Do not subject me to such emptiness.”