Vajpayee's ashes reach Jharkhand

An urn containing the ashes of Atal Bihari Vajpayee was today brought to Jharkhand, the state created during his prime ministership.

The ashes, collected by BJP's Jharkhand unit president Laxman Gilua in New Delhi, are likely to be immersed in five rivers of the state tomorrow, party sources said.

The urn was brought from the airport here in a procession to an auditorium where Governor Droupadi Murmu, Chief Minister Raghubar Das and others remembered Vajpayee at a programme.

"I have only a few words to pay tribute (to Vajpayee) because his character, ability and wisdom cannot be defined in words," Murmu said.

Stating that she came to public life seeing Vajpayee's ideology, Murmu said he worked for connecting village to village, panchayat to panchayat, district to district, state to state and individual to individual.

Jharkhand was created on November 15, 2000, on the birth anniversary of iconic tribal leader Birsa Munda, she said adding that a separate tribal affairs ministry was also created during the time when Vajpayee was the prime minister.

In his address, Chief Minister Raghubar Das said he believed that even now Vajpayee was among the people and would remain with them as his ideals give inspiration to them.

"A person like Atal ji takes birth in ages, (he was) a karma yogi, orator, successful political leader and a poet," Das said.

Besides Jharkhand, Vajpayee created two others states - Uttarakhand and Chhattisgarh, he said.

Assembly Speaker Dinesh Oraon, Leader of Opposition Hemant Soren and others also spoke on the occasion.