Vajpayee’s family left this UP village for higher education, its wait for a college continues

AS NARENDRA Modi cements his place in the BJP pantheon with bid for a third term in power, the thrum of the election campaign is largely missing from the only other leader of the party to precede him to the Prime Minister’s post.

In Bateshwar, located on the banks of the Yamuna, around 80 km from Agra, Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s extended family is still waiting for a government college, among other promises made by the Uttar Pradesh government.

Mangalacharan Shukla, 75, says: “Yogi (Adityanath) ji visited here for the asthi visarjan (immersion of ashes) of Vajpayee ji (on September 8, 2018) and promised many things, including a college. But most of the promises remain unfulfilled… They remember Vajpayee ji only on December 25 (his birth anniversary) and August 16 (his death anniversary).”

Ironically, all those years ago, it was for the sake of better education of his children that Vajpayee’s father had moved with his family to Gwalior.

In another bit of irony, the Higher Education Minister in the Adityanath government, Yogendra Upadhyay, is an MLA from nearby Agra.

Vajpayee, who spent many years of his childhood in Bateshwar, made just one visit to the village after he became the PM. Villagers say that several projects followed, including a railway line from Agra to Etawah via Bateshwar.

However, a college, which almost everyone in this village of 7,000 voters names as their top priority, remains out of reach. No school nearby offers classes beyond Class 10, and even to finish schooling, students have to travel at least 12 km.

Raghuveer Nishad, whose wife Neksa Devi is the village pradhan, says: “Our children need good quality education, a facility for intermediate and higher education.” Last year, CM Adityanath himself inaugurated