Country pays tearful adieu to Vajpayee

A disquieting silence descended on the Rashtriya Smriti Sthal today as thousands of people from across India stood motionless during the last rites of former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

The silence broke with the chanting of vedic mantras and cries of "Atal Ji Amar Rahein", which reverberated through the crematorium ground as the tricolour which draped Vajpayee's body was handed over to his grand-daughter Niharika.

People jostled to see the charismatic leader for the final time. Some even fainted because of the heat and humidity.

A section of the crowd were visibly irritated when their view was blocked by Gorkha regiment soldiers, who stood near the pyre to give gun salute to the former prime minister.

Khush Chaturvedi, a 27-year-old UPSC aspirant from Siwan in Bihar, was so overwhelmed with emotion that his voice choked.

"I am not politically inclined but I wanted to meet(former president Abdul) Kalam and Vajpayee once. I couldn't manage to meet them when they were alive, but I had to be here today," Chaturvedi said.

Manoj Prajapati, a 48-year-old businessman from Raipur, went to the BJP office in the morning and then walked to the Rashtriya Smriti Sthal to witness the last rites.

"He carved Chhattisgarh (from Madhya Pradesh) for us without any blooshed. I wanted to see him one last time," Prajapati, who reached Delhi last night after Vajpayee's death was announced.

President Ram Nath Kovind, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Bhutanese King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck, Speaker Sumitra Mahajan, Bangladesh Foreign Minister Abul Hassan Mahmood Ali and Pakistan's Law Minister Ali Zafar laid wreaths.