Atal Bihari Vajpayee had named this BJP MLA 'Emergency'; here is why

Varanasi: India is paying tributes to former Prime Minister late Atal Bihari Vajpayee on his death anniversary today (August 16). BJP MLA Saurabh Srivastava fondly remembered Vajpayee on the occasion.

BJP MLA from Varanasi Cantonment, Saurabh was close to Vajpayee, veteran leaders Manohar Joshi and LK Advani, thanks to the proximity of his father, former minister Harish Chandra Srivastava  to the BJP leaders.

Recalling the events, Saurabh in a interview to Dainik Bhaskar had said that he was born on August 8, 1975 at Ram Krishna Mission, when Emergency was imposed in the country.

Vajpayee came to know about his birth through Harish Chandra and immediately suggested that he should be named 'Emergency'. This news spread and as the result, for many years, Saurabh was called ‘Emergency’ by BJP leaders Joshi and Advani.

Saurabh had said that his father Harish Chandra, who passed away in 2015, was a former minister in Uttar Pradesh and he was also the state general secretary of Jansangh. During Saurabh's birth, he had gone underground as the police was constantly in search of him along with other leaders who opposed Emergency.

He had to change appearances constantly to come out in the open. He couldn't visit his wife even when Saurabh was born.

It was during one of the meetings when he met Vajpayee and told him about the birth of his son, who then asked him to name the child “Emergency”. "Then he must be named Emergency, said Vajpayee and started smiling," Saurabh had said.

After Emergency was lifted, Vajpayee took Saurabh in his arms and named him Emergency officially. Thus, making the top BJP leaders call him “Emergency” for many years to come.

He also said that his father had seen him for the first time after eight months of his birth that too at one of his friends’ house as their home in Mahmoorganj in Uttar Pradesh.

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