I was not into politics as a student, and nobody in my family was in politics either. I came into BJP in 2004 only because of Atal Behari Vajpayee. My father Dr G.C. Tripathi used to run a literary society in Lucknow called ‘Sahityiki’. Atal ji used to come there since his Jan Sangh days, not as a politician but as a poet. He used to come and mesmerize everyone with his poetry. For me, he was always a poet first, and then a politician.