B’day boy Vajpayee plays Santa

December 25: Atal Behari Vajpayee had a new role to play this Christmas day : that of Santa Claus, albeit in absentia, as the city unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) donned the garbs of the bearded, portly saint and flooded the city’s sick, deprived and poor with fruits, sweets, chocolates and other savouries.

Celebrating their leader’s 71st birthday for the first time in as many years, the BJP units today chose to mark the event with "constructive programmes" at 250 different places throughout the day. Vajpayee flew into the city late in the evening. And at a "very private" celebration at the home of Maharashtra’s Deputy Chief Minister Gopinath Munde, he cut the cake to mark his personal new year. Killing two birds with one stone, the BJP also managed to enroll about 25,000 new members in a single day by nailing passersby at the suburban railway stations. And with the Lok Sabha elections fast closing in, they also dropped off 20,000 leaflets bearing "Vajpayee’s message" at homes in and around central Mumbai. BJP city unit president Kirit Somaiyya and Rekha Mahajan, wife of BJP general secretary Pramod Mahajan, visited the sick and ailing at hospitals with fruits and flowers to enquire about their well-being. And while the CM donated his eyes to the nation at his big 60th birthday bash barely a month ago, BJP workers managed to draw 71 similar commitments.

This is the first time the party has celebrated Vajpayee’s birthday in such grand style. However, with Joshi’s birthday bash in the background, which is still generating controversy over the authenticity or otherwise of the 60-diamond necklace gifted to him, the BJP played it safe, keeping with Vajpayee’s image of austerity at all its functions. Befitting the role of the man being promoted as India’s next Prime Minister, the functions included blood donation drives, medical camps and the inauguration of toilet blocks in slums.

The events were organised almost overnight even as party workers managed to convince Vajpayee to make a detour to the city on his way to Rajkot, where he is due to launch the BJP’s campaign tomorrow.