New Delhi, Feb. 22 -- Vice President (VP) CP Radhakrishnan on Saturday launched "Atal Bihari Vajpayee: The Eternal Statesman", a coffee table book by former Union minister Vijay Goel, at Dr Ambedkar International Centre in New Delhi. Governors of Bihar, Rajasthan and Haryana, along with senior BJP leader Murli Manohar Joshi, attended the event. The book chronicles Goel's decades-long association with former Prime Minister and Bharat Ratna Atal Bihari Vajpayee through rare photographs and personal recollections. It traces Vajpayee's journey as a poet, parliamentarian and Prime Minister, while documenting key political moments and his leadership style, spanning across his childhood, youth and later years. The VP remembered the appreciation he received from Vajpayee as a young Jan Sangh leader on organising an event in Tamil Nadu. "I was organising one of the early Jan Sangh meetings in Coimbatore in 1974 when the party was still very small in the state. On hearing that Vajpayee would speak at the meeting, over 10,000 people turned up. I still smile when I remember his hand on my shoulder, praising me for the large crowd we managed to gather... He meant many things to many people, but above all, he was a compassionate human being," Radhakrishnan said. Former BJP president MM Joshi remembered his days as the science minister during Vajpayee's tenure, and the support he received despite informing the media about the nuclear testing a day in advance. In the book, Goel describes Vajpayee's emphasis on placing national interest above political considerations. "This perhaps is the first coffee-table book of its kind on Atal ji. My association with him spanned more than five decades, and for years I felt an urge to produce a volume that captures his political journey as well as the unseen, candid moments that reflected his personality," said Goel. It highlights Vajpayee's relationship with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, noting their shared emphasis on organisational discipline and development-oriented policies. He notes that the volume brings together photographs, captions and personal memories accumulated over more than five decades in the 312-page collection, which will be available across book stores for Rs.4,000....