LK Advani says he can't say no to book release functions

Senior BJP leader LK Advani can never say no to book release functions for "release" has been his favourite word since his two-year incarceration in 1975.

Taking a humorous dig at himself the former home minister said since 1975, "I have been to many book release functions. I can never say no to people as in 1975-77, I was in jail and release was a favourite word then.

"So I released several books after that," he quipped.

However, for poetry collections, he still prefers former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee as prose not poetry was his (Advani's) forte.

"I must have written a lot of words till now, but not poems. If Atalji would have been healthy I would have preferred that he does it," Advani said at the release of a condensed English version of the Ramayana here today.

The senior leader said that he could not read Hindi till he was about 20 years of age and thus his first tryst with Ramayana and Mahabharata was in Sindhi and later in English when he came to India.

He also mentioned that the turning point in his career came when he embarked on a countrywide 'Yatra' from Somnath as part of the Ram Temple movement.