Atal Bihari Vajpayee a gentle giant: Arun Jaitley

BJP leader Arun Jaitley today said former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee was a "gentle giant" who never compromised with his office.

At a function marking the launch of “Samgra Atal ji” to collect and compile all information on Vajpayee in digitised form, Jaitley said he remembered the days when the Vajpayee government was defeated by just one vote in the 1990s but nobody could allege that a bribe was offered to buy votes.

He said Vajpayee had headed a democratic government where any minister had the freedom to speak on an issue during cabinet meetings.

"Vajpayeeji would listen to all of them and in the end summarise the issue in a few words to finalise it", said Jaitley.

Jaitley also gave examples where Vajpayee was described as a "gentle giant, master of incomplete sentences and an elder statesman.

"There are several such examples where we find Vajpayee winning laurels of everybody," he said.

Even when he was the leader of the opposition, Vajpayee had the capability to take the level of discussion on any issue to match with the prime minister, he said.