The orchid named after Kalpana Chawla. Picture by Sailesh Pradhan

Gangtok, April 13: The gesture was fragrant with political symbolism.

When orchid growers named a flower after Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee at the local orchid park today, he flashed a smile in gratitude.

He looked sombre when asked next to name a flower. “Kalpana Chawla,” Vajpayee said, naming the orchid after the India-born Nasa scientist, killed in the break-up of the space shuttle Columbia.

In his seventies, Vajpayee is still in bloom politically. The decision to name the orchid after him was to mark his first visit to the state.

Vajpayee was politically correct when he chose to call the flower after Chawla, whose death cast a wider pall on the country of her birth than on the country of her adoption.

The orchid named after Vajpayee belongs to the Dendrobium hybrid variety. With white, the orchid has a splash of crimson in the centre. From now on, the flower will be known as Dendrobium Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

The other orchid, named after Chawla, is pink and shaped like a star. It belongs to the Cattlleya hybrid variety, one of the 500 species available in the Himalayan state.

Like others across the country, residents of Sikkim deeply mourned her death as soon as the space shuttle’s disintegration became known.

Vajpayee visited the orchid park on Whitehall compound this afternoon, ringed by his security men. The media was kept away for security reasons.

S. T. Lachungpa, chairman of the Sikkim Flower Festival Committee, showed Vajpayee around.

Former Sikkim chief secretary K.C. Pradhan and his son Sailesh Pradhan were credited with creating the two hybrid orchids. It took them five years to cultivate the flowers.

Vajpayee was impressed with the collection of orchids in the park.