Union Minister Arun Jaitley today said that George Fernandes was a politician with a difference and with his death India has lost a political colossus.

Paying glowing tributes to the veteran socialist leader, in a Facebook post, Mr Jaitley said, George Fernandes had the ability to stand alone, take a position, however extreme, and sustain that position.

He said, George was a political worker, an extraordinary leader, a powerful trade unionist, a parliamentarian that many would dread to face and above all a dissenter.

In the post titled ‘George Saheb as I knew him’, the Union Minister said he was one of the most charismatic speakers and the last of the veteran Lohiaites.

Ram Manohar Lohia, the mentor of Fernandes, represented the anti-Nehru, anti-Congress face of Indian politics and gave the famous slogan ‘Congress hatao desh bachao’.

Mr Jaitley said, in the post-Dr Lohia era, with the emergence of BJP as the principal pole of Indian politics, many Lohiaites shed their inhibition and started doing political business with the Congress and the Left was not far behind.

They called it re-polarisation. He said, one honourable exception was George Fernandes. Mr Jaitley said, George Fernandes was a born Lohiaite and he died as one and his anti-Congress moorings were never compromised.