Leaders pay tribute to Vajpayee at Silchar’s Zero Point, recall East–West Corridor vision

Silchar, Dec 25: At Zero Point in Rongpur—where Silchar symbolically meets Saurashtra—the tributes to former Prime Minister and Bharat Ratna Atal Bihari Vajpayee on his 101st birth anniversary unfolded as more than a ritual of remembrance. They became a meditation on an idea—one that continues to traverse India’s vast geography, binding its peripheries to its core.

Cabinet Minister Kaushik Rai, Rajya Sabha MP Kanad Purakyastha, former Deputy Speaker and ex-legislator Dilip Kumar Paul, along with senior BJP leaders, offered floral tributes at Vajpayee’s statue, invoking the memory of a statesman remembered as much for restraint and dialogue as for decisive, nation-shaping action. Often described as a poet in politics, Vajpayee was also the architect of some of independent India’s most audacious infrastructural and strategic initiatives.

Foremost among them was the ambitious East–West Corridor—envisioned to link Kashmir to Kanyakumari and Saurashtra to Silchar. At the time, the project drew scepticism and sharp criticism, particularly over Silchar’s inclusion in the national imagination. Decades later, standing at the very crossroads of that vision, leaders said the corridor has outlived its critics.

“We are standing at the confluence of Vajpayee ji’s dream and our collective resolve,” Minister Kaushik Rai said. He added that the ongoing push to complete the Mahasadak under Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Minister Dr Himanta Biswa Sarma would serve as a fitting tribute to Vajpayee’s conviction that connectivity was never merely about roads, but about dignity, inclusion, and visibility for regions long relegated to the margins.

Reflecting on Vajpayee’s tenure, Rai also underscored the former Prime Minister’s role in redefining India’s strategic posture on the global stage. The Pokhran-II nuclear tests, he said, were not acts of bravado but of quiet, resolute conviction.

“Despite immense external pressure and unmistakable signals of opposition from global powers, Vajpayee ji chose national interest over intimidation. He asked the people of the country to remain united—and went ahead,” Rai said, describing the tests as a long-overdue assertion of India’s sovereign strength.