MUMBAI: Manohar Parrikar was a star performer at the "chief ministers' conferences" held at the national level, said socio-political activist Sudheendra Kulkarni Monday.
Parrikar (63) Sunday died of pancreatic cancer and was cremated with full state honours Monday.
Kulkarni, who served in the Prime Minister's Office as Director during the earlier NDA government and worked alongside BJP stalwarts Atal Bihari Vajpayee and LK Advani, was a batch junior to Parrikar at the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay.
Speaking to a regional channel, he said, "When I was working in the PMO, there used to be chief ministers' conferences at the national level. Parrikar used to be a star performer in such meetings. He was representing a small state, but it was his charisma and deep understanding of issues that used to draw attention towards him."
"We both came from different schools of thought but it never came in between us when it came to the tasks we agreed to complete during the first NDA government," he recalled.
"During the general election post Emergency, we got along very well while working for our candidate Subramanian Swamy though I came from a Communist background and Parrikar from the RSS," Kulkarni said.
Queried on whether he knew of Parrikar's political inclination, Kulkarni said, "I never noticed it but he was more interested in social work. Once he completed his education from IIT-B, he went back to Goa and started working with local RSS workers."
We later met when I joined the BJP and we worked together for almost 15 years, recalled Kulkarni.
One of the reasons behind Parrikar's success was his disciplined life, inculcated from the RSS, and his fondness for science and technology.
It helped him achieve success in his political career, Kulkarni said.
He said there was a fear that, with Parrikar's death, Goa would go back to political turmoil since replacing such towering personalities was difficult.