At the time of death, it will be difficult to categorize the passing away. This is because some who are part of the ruling political ethos within the RSS and the Swadeshi Jagran Manch will view this to be a mercy killing. There will be others who will scream that what is about to happen is tantamount to murder. Both these assumptions will not be altogether true. The fact is the BJP-led Government has been suffering from a variety of ailments necessitating this extra-ordinary, if logical, step.

The fact that Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee was acutely aware that he would go down in history as being a thirteen-day wonder after having spent a lifetime, as he is fond of saying, in Opposition, was not lost on him as he waited for All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam chief J Jayalalitha to send her letter of support to the President. It can be argued that both Jayalalitha and Vajpayee weighed the pros and cons carefully. Jayalalitha knew that she had Vajpayee where she wanted. She was on top of the situation, politically. Vajpayee was the strategic supplicant. It cannot be argued that he was not eager to wipe out the dubious record of thirteen-day wonder, even if it meant having to suffer the slings and arrows of political misfortune in the process. Politically, he lay prone, much in the manner of southern politicians whose favourite form of greeting Jayalalitha is by lying flat on the ground, nose grinding the dust beneath her political feet, prone on the ground, arms extended towards her feet. The die was cast when Jayalalitha, uttered, as it were `You may arise, Atalji. I'll anoint you Man of the Moment. But only if you can fulfill my wishes'' It was Alladin and the Wonderful Lamp all over again. Well, almost. The only difference was while Vajpayee's single most important and wettest political wish was being fulfilled by Jayalalitha, all he would have to do would be to take a realistic view of the matter and throw a few favours her way.

But the advantages were endless. He would at last go down in history as the one man who made all the difference to India. He would explode the atom bomb. He would not stand in the way of the CTBT. He would send a bus to Lahore and another to Dhaka. He would sign a Free Trade Agreement with Sri Lanka overcoming bureaucratic machinations. (It is quite besides the point that the only thing now being freely traded between New Delhi and Colombo are charges of insincerity.)

Maybe there would be scope to send a bus to Kosovo, even. He would show that he could practice politics as the art of the possible by overcoming his party's initial objections to the dropping of Udham Singh Nagar from the proposed Uttaranchal district. He would dismiss Rabri Government in Bihar. He would side with the Shiv Sainiks on the Sri Krishna Report. He would call for a national debate on conversions, a subject close to the parivar's heart.

While he was immersed in such important matters of state, he would allow George Fernandes to show the Armed Forces just who was boss. This would be the political equivalent of dynamiting the whole Armed Service establishment. Last time it was Baroda dynamite, this time Bhagwat dynamite. So what if it wasn't on the National Agenda of Governance? There is something, after all, to be said for private agenda, and these things have to be respected. It will be clear to the reader that by now Vajpayee Government was pretty much set to get into the history books, having done so much for the nation in so short a time.

At the same time, he had managed to do very little for the RSS, thereby proving his secular credentials. It cannot be overlooked that that till the very end he remained a party with a difference.

It is in retrospect, unfair for certain sections of the media to have said that the inexperience of the party in terms of providing governance consistently showed. Now it can be said: This is wrong.

The list of achievements in just one year is so comprehensive that strategically there remains precious little left for the BJP to do in the Twelfth Lok Sabha. There remains of course the core agenda. This was largely not broached during this tenure. The last time, they lasted 13 days. This time they may last close to 400. Who knows, there is always the next time. Ab ki bari Atal Behari, agli baari Advaniji ki. Jai Sri Ram!