Like the importance of Chai or Tea in PM Modis life, the Chai had its own role to play in the life of Vajpayee also. There were tense situations but he would close his eyes and defuse them. He used to take all the criticism in his stride and then would say Aage Cheliye. Meaning accepted please go ahead.
Modi is popular with Chai pe chercha and won the election in Gujarat with Chai wala tag. Once BJP lost the election in Maharashtra by a whisker and they almost have won it otherwise. The leaders came in for a postmortem of the election and some of them blamed Shivasena for the Sabotage. Some other said that it was internal sabotage so on and so forth.
Vajpayee heard all of them and said so we could have won otherwise. Then he summed up the meeting saying let’s have some Chai. Whenever there was some tension or discussion he used to order for tea and make the situation very easy and light. Sometimes Vajpayee worked out the issue from others point of view and was successful.
He did the same with Pakistan. We are bigger than Pakistan and we have to reach out and get the things done he used to say. India is stronger than Pakistan he used to say.
He never encouraged the building of the Ram Temple beyond a point. He also stopped when the pillars were about to erected and said that one must not go beyond a point and that things have to be done with consensus.
