“SHRI Atal Behari Vajpayee is a global leader. We should not confine his personality to a particular party. He is beyond party leadership. The compilation of his speeches, articles or poems will surely serve as a source of inspiration for the generations to come,” said former President of India Dr APJ Abdul Kalam while formally launching ‘Samagra Atalji’ project at Siri Fort Auditorium in New Delhi on June 8.
‘Samagra Atalji’ is a mega project which has been launched to compile and digitalise the speeches, articles, interviews, poems, photographs, videos, etc. related to former Prime Minister Shri Atal Behari Vajpayee. Mumbai-based Rambhau Mhalagi Prabodhini will undertake the work. The Prabodhini has already compiled the speeches of Shri Vajpayee in Parliament in 2006.
Senior BJP leader Shri LK Advani, NDA convenor Shri Sharad Yadav, BJP national president Shri Nitin Gadkari, Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Smt Sushma Swaraj, Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Shri Arun Jaitley, Trustee of Rambhau Mhalagi Prabodhini Shri Chandrakant Patil, former Minister Shri Vijya Goel and director general of the Prabodhini Shri Vinay Sahasrabuddhe were also present on the occasion. Senior journalist Shri Umesh Upadhyaya will look after the work as director.
Dr Kalam also inaugurated an exclusive website for the project—www.atalji.org. Lauding the efforts of Rambhau Mhalagi Prabodhini, Shri Advani said any project that has been taken up by it has been a success. He hoped that this new project would also be undertaken perfectly.
Shri Nitin Gadkari described Shri Vajpayee as the inspiration for all party workers. He appealed to all the people who have any kind of material related to Vajpayee to provide to the Prabodhini for the Samagra.
Shri Sharad Yadav recalled that he reached Parliament by holding the hands of Shri Atalji in 1974.
Shri Vinay Sahasrabuddhe said the main objective of the project is to preserve Shri Vajpayee’s thoughts in digital format, as a generation of youths was influenced by Vajpayee’s oratory and ideology. “We want the legacy to be passed on to the new generation, which is why, we decided to digitalise Atalji’s speeches, interviews, articles, poems,” he said. The audio and video format is expected to be completed by December 2011 and the written format in December 2012.
