NEW DELHI: To avoid the rush of mourners, 47-year-old Hulagappa reached the BJP headquarters at Deen Dayal Upadhyay Marg at around 9 am with a large basket of flowers. Accompanying him were around 50-60 men and women, all leprosy patients from Jeevan Deep Kustha Ashram in RK Puram, Sector 1.“Sushmaji would always visit our colony once in a year. How could we miss her last glimpse…We still cannot believe that she is no more,” said Hulagappa.
Hailing from Telangana (then in Andhra Pradesh), Hulagappa arrived in Delhi three decades ago, after he was diagnosed with leprosy and his family abandoned him. He then knew nothing about Sushma Swaraj. “It was in 1995 when I saw Sushmaji for the first time. In 1998, news came that she was made the Delhi CM, the first woman to hold the position. She soon visited us at the leprosy ashram. She helped us to get pension, made attempts to get us jobs, built a larger house and made separate toilets because we are often seen as untouchables,” he recollected.
Hulagappa and his companions became anxious as time ticked away. It was past 2 pm and the dejected ashram inmates sat outside at a lawn inside the BJP office.
“When we tried to enter, the police pushed us aside saying we cannot go inside. We don’t know Hindi much so couldn’t explain from where we came. We requested them to allow us but they refused. I came to know the body will be taken away, but we won’t go unless we see her,” Shekanna said.
The 61-year-old ashram inmate clearly remembered the last time he had met Sushma was at her residence in 2018. “She would talk very sweetly, never aggressively. The last time she visited our ashram was in 2016…She would come almost every year at least once to meet us, especially on her birthday. And whenever she missed coming, one of her officials would arrive with sweets. She never hesitated to share our meal…she was a gem of a person,” he said.
Padma Shri Dr Brahm Dutt, who oversees the ashram’s administrative affairs, said Sushma Swaraj’s association with the ashram goes back to her days in Ambala when she was a Haryana minister when she extended help towards setting up ashrams. “She helped in setting up the ashram in RK Puram too. I clearly remember on February 14, 1995, she decided to celebrate her birthday with us. Ever since then, she maintained the ritual…For the last few years, she couldn’t visit owing to her health,” Dutt said with a tinge of sadness.
Though Swaraj couldn’t make it to the ashram, the Ashram inmates got their turn to pay respects to their well-wisher for the last time.