[Assam] Vajpayee recalls his close bond with Ashok Saikia

[Pradip Kumar Datta]

Vajpayee recalls his close bond with Ashok Saikia
  
>From Our Spl Correspondent Assam Tribune
 NEW DELHI, Jan 14 – Former Prime Ministe Atal Behari Vajpayee has mourned the passing away of his most trusted aide, Ashok Saikia, describing him as one of the most outstanding officers and a close family friend.

At a prayer meeting held at Chinmaya Mission here yesterday, Saikia’s family members, friends and colleagues gathered to pay glowing tributes to the late bureaucrat. The prayer meeting, presided over by former BJP minister Vijay Goel, was attended by Saikia’s wife Ranjana Saikia, his two sons Anshuman and Aditya besides his daughter-in-law, Aarti and other close family members.

In a message, read out by Goel, the former Prime Minister grieved Saikia’s untimely death. Vajpayee recalled his close bond with ‘Ashok’. “When I met him little did I realise that relation with this 18-year-old lad from Assam would grow into close family tie,” the message read. The message also contained a poem composed by him. 

If Vajpayee’s message was emotional, his foster daughter Namita was inconsolable. Recalling her association with Saikia since she was four years old, she said, it started with a fight because he had taken away her tri-cycle. “This fight continued until he passed away on December 30,” said a teary-eyed Namita, paying him a rich tribute.

Vajpayee’s family members including his daughter and son-in-law Ranjan Bhattacharya were personally coordinating the prayer meeting, receiving the guests at the gate. Present on the occasion were top political leaders, senior bureaucrats, lawyers, editors and journalists including former minister Arun Jetley, Arun Shourie, principal secretary to the Prime Minister, TKA Nair, Nobel Laureate RK Pachouri, former home secretary, VK Duggal, many retired and serving officers of Assam Cadre.

Also those who attended the prayer meeting included Editor-in-Chief of The Indian Express, Shekhar Gupta, Prabhu Chawla of India Today Group, columnist Coomi Kapoor, among others.

Saikia was described as one of the most able bureaucrats with a great sense of humour. His batch-mate Amitabh Pandey recalled their early years at the IAS academy. His colleagues reminisced his role in the aftermath of the super-cyclone in Orissa, how, as a joint secretary in the PMO, he had flown down to the state to personally take stock of the situation. Once in Orissa he shunned all formalities and reached the affected areas with the help of an NGO.

Saikia’s handling of the relief and rehabilitation in the aftermath of the Kutch earthquake has become a country model for disaster management, his colleagues recalled.


       
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