Captain Amarinder Singh on Saturday visited the 6-A Krishna Menon residence of former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee to pay respects...

Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh on Saturday visited the 6-A Krishna Menon residence of former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee to pay his respects to the family. The Chief Minister spent about half an hour at the house and also penned some of his feelings for Vajpayee, whom he remembered meeting for the first time back in 1970, in the visitors’ book.  The Chief Minister met Vajpayee’s foster daughter Namita and son-in-law Ranjan, along with other family members, to pay his personal condolences, according to an official spokesperson.

Amarinder Singh visited Vajpayee's residence to pay his respects to the family

Recalling Vajpayee’s 1970 Punjab visit of Atal ji, Captain Amarinder said Atal ji had come there to campaign for him and spent three days in Patiala. The Chief Minister reminisced that he had come out of the Army in 1968 and was contesting his first election – a bypoll from Dakala in 1970 after the sitting MLA, Basant Singh, was killed by Naxalites. The Chief Minister remembered the former Prime Minister as a great leader, an excellent statesman, a dignified politician and a fine human being. His death had left a vacuum that would be hard to fill, said Captain Amarinder Singh.