All help to Mauritius: PM

By Alok Mukherjee

MAURITIUS, MARCH 12. The Prime Minister, Mr. A. B. Vajpayee, today rounded off his three-day official visit to this country with a public function at Illot village where he laid the foundation stone for a centre to be built in the memory of Rabindranath Tagore.

At this function, Mr. Vajpayee was at his eloquent best, evoking repeated applause from the audience comprising the local people. The Mauritian Prime Minister, Mr. Navinchandra Ramgoolam, was also present and he set the tone for the meeting by making a presentation in Hindi, but switched to English subsequently. Mr. Vajpyee, however, delivered the entire speech in Hindi, which went down very well with local population. The thrust of Mr. Vajpayee's address was on the time-tested Indo-Mauritian bilateral relationship and whenever he referred to ``great initiative of the Mauritian People'', the applause was the loudest. Mr. Vajpayee also drew a tremendous response when he promised that whenever Mauritius would need assistance of any kind, the ``long distance between us will not come in the way of our reaching help to you.''

Mr. Vajpayee also touched on the secular nature of the two countries and emphasised on this point a number of times. Drawing a parallel with India, the Prime Minister pointed out that it was a Hindu king who had without hesitation permitted the setting up of the first Masjid in India and even the first Church in the country.

Earlier in the day, Mr. Vajpayee was the chief guest at the 32nd Independence Day celebrations of Mauritius, where he shared the dais with the President of the republic, Mr. Caseem Utteen, and Mr. Ramgoolam. The show was brief and somewhat on the lines of the Indian Republic Day celebrations. Of course, the scale and grandeur was much less. The celebrations were kicked off by a fly-past comprising three police helicopters, which was followed by march-past by the para-military forces of the country. A performance by school children and march-past by various organisations in the country rounded off the nearly one-hour long show.

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