He has to put out a hand to steady himself as he shuffles the few steps from the chair to the podium; his voice is faltering and unsteady and he has trouble pulling a crowd even at home in northern India.
But such appearances can be deceptive.
As Indian politics grows ever more image-driven, the idiosyncratic Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, 79, grey-haired and portly, is riding high as the most successful politician outside the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty that rules the once indomitable Congress party that led the nation to independence.
"No PM outside of the Congress or even the family that dominates its politics has ever been as popular," says political analyst Mahesh Rangarajan. "Since around the mid-1990s, he has been the most pivotal figure for non-Congress parties."
Surprise polls suggest Vajpayee's Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its allies are in trouble and may struggle to retain their majority after the national election that entered its last round of voting yesterday. Results are due on Thursday.
The BJP's "India Shining" campaign slogan has turned off many rural voters who see the party's hard-sell of economic progress as smug and out of touch with the hundreds of millions of farmers who remain mired in poverty.
Caught off guard by the polls, Vajpayee has dropped the issue of economic management to go straight for the opposition.
"If the coalition does not get a majority, the country will slip into political anarchy," he told an election rally in Bulandshah in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh last week.
Vajpayee himself still has a strong lead in opinion polls over Congress' Italian-born leader, Sonia Gandhi, but campaigning by her popular daughter, Priyanka, and son, Rahul, has helped revive the party and narrow the gap with the BJP.
His appeal and carefully honed image as a moderate elder statesman are key weapons in the BJP's bid for an unprecedented second five-year term.
"Vajpayee -- personally, he is a good man. But he is a good man in a bad party -- his party has people that are fanatics," says Perwez Abedin, manager of a shoe factory just outside Vajpayee's northern constituency of Lucknow.
Vajpayee's age and health could also be against him after two knee replacements, although he has pledged to see through another five-year term if he wins office. However, his concentration and his oratory appear to have weakened in recent years.
But he rejects his opponents' demands to retire.
"People say I am forgetful and I am incapable. Nowadays, everyone tends to twist statements. But I think the voter will understand and I am confident that the people will give us their mandate," he was quoted as saying in Saturday's Indian Express.
Analysts say that Vajpayee's heir apparent, hardline Deputy Prime Minister Lal Krishna Advani, lacks his appeal to both voters and political allies.
Vajpayee, an MP for almost half a century, is a man friends say keenly wants to forge a place in history for himself and a role on the world stage for India as a great power.
"I still remember the day when I became a candidate for the Lok Sabha for the first time," he told a small, restrained gathering of party workers last month, referring to parliament. "I went into the field only with one weapon -- and that was to make India a great nation."
Says one close aide: "He really wants a place in history. He doesn't want to be just another politician."
It is this desire, analysts say, that drives Vajpayee's efforts to strike a lasting peace with neighboring Pakistan, the most recent of which he launched a year ago after the nuclear-armed rivals came close to war over Kashmir.
LANDMARK CASE: ‘Every night we were dragged to US soldiers and sexually abused. Every week we were forced to undergo venereal disease tests,’ a victim said More than 100 South Korean women who were forced to work as prostitutes for US soldiers stationed in the country have filed a landmark lawsuit accusing Washington of abuse, their lawyers said yesterday. Historians and activists say tens of thousands of South Korean women worked for state-sanctioned brothels from the 1950s to 1980s, serving US troops stationed in country to protect the South from North Korea. In 2022, South Korea’s top court ruled that the government had illegally “established, managed and operated” such brothels for the US military, ordering it to pay about 120 plaintiffs compensation. Last week, 117 victims
‘HYANGDO’: A South Korean lawmaker said there was no credible evidence to support rumors that Kim Jong-un has a son with a disability or who is studying abroad South Korea’s spy agency yesterday said that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s daughter, Kim Ju-ae, who last week accompanied him on a high-profile visit to Beijing, is understood to be his recognized successor. The teenager drew global attention when she made her first official overseas trip with her father, as he met with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Analysts have long seen her as Kim’s likely successor, although some have suggested she has an older brother who is being secretly groomed as the next leader. The South Korean National Intelligence Service (NIS) “assesses that she [Kim Ju-ae]
In the week before his fatal shooting, right-wing US political activist Charlie Kirk cheered the boom of conservative young men in South Korea and warned about a “globalist menace” in Tokyo on his first speaking tour of Asia. Kirk, 31, who helped amplify US President Donald Trump’s agenda to young voters with often inflammatory rhetoric focused on issues such as gender and immigration, was shot in the neck on Wednesday at a speaking event at a Utah university. In Seoul on Friday last week, he spoke about how he “brought Trump to victory,” while addressing Build Up Korea 2025, a conservative conference
China has approved the creation of a national nature reserve at the disputed Scarborough Shoal (Huangyan Island, 黃岩島), claimed by Taiwan and the Philippines, the government said yesterday, as Beijing moves to reinforce its territorial claims in the contested region. A notice posted online by the Chinese State Council said that details about the area and size of the project would be released separately by the Chinese National Forestry and Grassland Administration. “The building of the Huangyan Island National Nature Reserve is an important guarantee for maintaining the diversity, stability and sustainability of the natural ecosystem of Huangyan Island,” the notice said. Scarborough
RSS