A day after seven of the Aam Aadmi Party’s 10 MPs in Rajya Sabha defected to the BJP, the top leaders of the party met in the heart of the capital – not at a political function, but to express solidarity with a senior colleague in her moment of deep personal loss.Seated in the front row at a solemn function to honour the memory of Prof Vijay Kumar Singh, the father of former Delhi Chief Minister Atishi, was AAP national convener Arvind Kejriwal and his wife Sunita, Kejriwal’s former ministerial colleagues Manish Sisodia, Satyender Jain, and Imran Hussain, and Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh.Former Speaker of the Delhi Vidhan Sabha Ram Niwas Goel, AAP MLA Jarnail Singh, and former MLA Dilip Pandey were among the other AAP leaders present at the commemoration at Chinmaya Mission on Saturday.Professor Singh, a distinguished academic, Marxist theorist, and an outstanding scholar of Soviet and Russian history who taught at Delhi University for 35 years, passed away on April 17. He was 80.Also present were senior BJP leader Vijay Goel and BJP MLAs Abhay Verma and Ajay Mahawar, and former Congress MLA Subhash Chopra. Chief Minister Rekha Gupta had attended Prof Singh’s funeral on April 18.To the auditorium packed so tightly with Prof Singh’s comrades, students, admirers, friends, and family that there was barely any standing space,Atishi spoke movingly about her father.She recalled specifically his unwavering commitment to a fairer and more equal society, his lifelong battle for truth and justice, and his large heart full of love and compassion for everyone whose life intersected with his.Story continues below this adShe mentioned anecdotes from his life with his family – from the times he would sit up by her bed when she was unwell and make coffee for her at 1 in the night when she prepared for exams, to the time when she would return home to find him watching her political speeches and press conferences on Facebook.“His heart was filled with a love that shone in his eyes and lurked in his cute smile. He had a special relationship with everyone he met… He would sit with his grandchildren in his library-study, watching Peppa Pig and Chhota Bheem on his computer that was otherwise filled with documents on Russian history and the history of communism…,” Atishi said.She also described the deep bond that Prof Singh shared with his wife and ideological fellow traveller, Tripta Wahi, former professor of history at Hindu College. “They were not just husband and wife — they were true life partners,” Atishi said.Prof Wahi was seated in the front row with other members of the family.Story continues below this adHistorian Uma Chakravarti, general secretary of the New Trade Union Initiative (NTUI) Gautam Mody, and Prof Singh’s student-turned-comrade Padam, spoke before Atishi.“Vijay was a proud communist for whom in the first instance communism derived from the simplest forms of humanism – of love, concern, and empathy for each other. For Vijay, the solidarity between people was not an abstraction. It derived from basic human relations…,” Mody said.On Prof Singh’s academics and activism, he said: “Vijay’s understanding as a political thinker and activist was rooted in the unshakable understanding that robust theory alongside a reading of history are necessary for analysing a contemporary situation correctly. It’s only through this that a political program for societal change can evolve that is not opportunistic. Opportunism for Vijay was what stalled the advance of progressive ideas and change.”Members of the family said Prof Singh had a great love for music, and classical musician Vidya Shah presented a few among his favourite compositions.Story continues below this adAmong the numbers she sang was Faiz Ahmad Faiz’s stirring revolutionary nazm Hum dekhenge, the Bhakti hymn Man lago mera yaar fakiri mein, attributed to Sant Ravidas, and Gopal Das Neeraj’s progressive poem Ab toh mazhab koi aisa bhi chalaaya jaye, jismein insaan ko insaan banaaya jaye…