A view from a PMO

Book review of Vajpayee: The Years That Changed India

Atal Bihari Vajpayee was prime minister of India over three stints: May, 1996 to June, 1996; March 1998 to October 1999; and October 1999, after the 13th general election, till 2004. In between he was leader of the opposition. Shakti Sinha, an IAS officer, served as private secretary to Vajpayee when in the opposition and then as joint secretary in the Vajpayee Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) between 1996 and 1999. This book limits itself largely to those years, though it does track Vajpayee’s early growth and development as a politician and a swayamsevak. 

First, what the book doesn’t talk about. Another