The Hindu : New Delhi News : Tributes paid to Vijayaraje

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Oct 15, 2004

New Delhi

New Delhi

Tributes paid to Vijayaraje

By Our Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI, OCT. 14. Glowing tributes were paid today to eminent parliamentarian and social worker, Rajmata Vijayaraje Scindia, on her 85th birth anniversary and she was hailed as a true champion of democracy and a self-less person who dedicated her life to politics for ensuring that she was able to reach out to the poorest of the poor.

Delivering the Rajmata Vijayaraje Scindia Memorial Lecture II on "Democracy and Good Governance'' organised by the Delhi Study Group on the occasion, the Chief Minister of Chhattisgarh, Raman Singh, said the Rajmata Scindia epitomised struggle and sacrifice. "Though she could have lived a life of comfort, she chose to come out on the roads and work for the masses,'' he said, adding that she was a dedicated politician as she had not entered public life only for personal gains, fame, greed or ambition.

Noting that she donated generously for health and education, Dr. Singh said she was also a strong advocate of democracy and had vehemently opposed the imposition of Emergency for which she also had to undergo incarceration and torture in the Tihar Jail in Delhi.

Recalling how narratives of poverty often reduced her to tears, the Chief Minister said it was the compassion in her which made her a good human being and a great politician. He said many of her ideas reflected in the decisions taken by the National Democratic Alliance Government during its six-year tenure. Be it the construction of roads in villages, expansion of the telecom sector or creation of three new States, her efforts had impacted every aspect of governance.

Though the former Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, was to deliver the keynote address, the president of Delhi Study Group and MLA from Saket in South Delhi, Vijay Jolly, informed that he could not come due to inflammation problem in his knee and Vijayaraje's elder daughter and Rajasthan Chief Minister, Vasundhara Raje, was also indisposed due to viral fever.

As such stepping in for an impromptu address, her younger daughter and MLA from Madhya Pradesh, Yashodhara Raje, said just the way she had entered politics by default to aid her ailing mother, so too she has been invited to speak. Noting that "service to the people'' was the teaching of her mother, she recalled how the Rajmata had ousted Govind Narain Singh as the Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh when she found that he was not working properly.

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