Who is Ved Pratap Vaidik, the man in the eye of the storm?

New Delhi: Journalist Ved Pratap Vaidik Vaidik, who stoked a controversy after meeting the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack accused Hafeez Saeed, is known to be close to yoga guru Ramdev. The meeting has given enough ammo to Congress to corner the Narendra Modi government.According to Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi, Vaidik had links with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), however former RSS spokesperson Ram Madhav has dismissed the allegations, a report published in Business Standard said.Political advisor to Baba Ramdev, journo Vaidik has managed his few days of fame but greatly embarrassed the BJP-led government which quickly distanced itself from the outspoken journalist. Senior party leaders like Arun Jaitley and Sushma Swaraj were forced to clarify in Parliament that Vaidik was not authorized by government in any way to meet Hafiz Saeed. So, who is Ved Pratap Vaidik, the man in the eye of the storm for the last couple of days?Ved Pratap Vaidik, born 30 December 1944, Indore, is a journalist, scholar, political analyst and freelance columnist. People who know him say that Vaidik has always seen himself as a "messenger of peace" and has unabashedly used his political contacts to be at the right place at the right time. He had been with Press Trust of India as the founder-editor of its Hindi news agency “Bhasha”. Before that he was the Editor (views) in Navbharat Times of the Times Group. At present, he is the Chairman of Bhartiya Bhasha Sammelan.Vaidik hails from an Arya Samaj family and was initially influenced by socialist leader Ram Manohar Lohia and considers Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav as a close friend.Vaidik, indeed is a man of many parts. His friends and associates in journalism do accuse him of being prone to boasting about his achievements.His doctoral thesis from Delhi's Jawaharlal Nehru University was on Afghanistan, and since then has kept close track of developments in that country.Vaidik started his career as a lecturer at Delhi's Motilal Nehru College in the early 1970s, but soon exhibited his uncanny knack of finding access to the influential and powerful. He grew close to the then PM Indira Gandhi's adviser P N Haksar. His claim that he could have been the deputy PM under P V Narasimha Rao or that Atal Bihari Vajpayee wanted him to mediate with the Taliban during the hijacking of IC 814 in 1999 may be outlandish. He claims to have “rubbed shoulders” with several prime ministers, presidents, external affairs ministers and guerilla leaders and to be “one of the most reputed mass orators in India”. He has also posted his photographs with such leaders as Hamid Karzai and Nawaz Sharif.He currently writes a weekly column in Hindi which according to Vaidik is published in over 200 newspapers. One of his columns dating back to May 2009, that is just after UPA's return to power, talks about how he was part of the then PM Manmohan Singh's entourage to a visit to Kabul in 2005 where he spent four hours in discussion with Rahul Gandhi at former emperor Zahir Shah's palace and found the young man deeply impressive.