Former Indian PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee passes away
Former Prime Minister Atal
Bihari Vajpayee, who ordered nuclear tests to make India a nuclear weapons
power and traveled by bus to Pakistan in a grand diplomatic gesture, died on
Thursday, the hospital where he was admitted said in a statement, Reuters reported.
A poet-politician, Vajpayee
was one of the most popular leaders of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling
Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party. He was 93.
But unlike Modi, who critics say
is a polarizing figure despite his pledge of inclusive development for India’s
1.3 billion people, Vajpayee was the moderate face of Hindu nationalism,
admired by some political foes.
Atal Bihari Vajpayee
(Pronunciation 25 December 1924 –
16 August 2018) was an Indian politician who thrice served as the Prime Minister of India, first for a term of
13 days in 1996, for a period of eleven months from 1998 to 1999, and then for
a full term from 1999 to 2004.
He was a member of the Indian Parliament for over four decades,
being elected to the Lok
Sabha, the lower house, ten times, and twice to the Rajya Sabha,
the upper house.
He served as the Member of Parliament for Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh until 2009 when he
retired from active politics due to health concerns.
Vajpayee was among the
founding members of the erstwhile Bharatiya Jana Sangh which he also headed
from 1968 to 1972. He was the Minister of External Affairs in the
cabinet of Prime Minister Morarji Desai.
When the Janata government collapsed, Vajpayee
restructured the Jana Sangh into the Bharatiya Janata Party in 1980.
He was the first Indian prime
minister who was not a member of the Indian National Congress party to have
served a full five-year term in office.
He was conferred India's highest
civilian honour, the Bharat Ratna, by the President of India, Pranab Mukherjee in
2015.
The Modi government declared
in 2014 that Vajpayee's birthday, 25 December, would be marked as Good Governance Day. He
died on 16 August 2018 due to age related illness.
| 10th Prime Minister of India | |
|---|---|
| In office 19 March 1998 – 22 May 2004 | |
| President |
|
| Deputy | L. K. Advani |
| Preceded by | I. K. Gujral |
| Succeeded by | Manmohan Singh |
| In office 16 May 1996 – 1 June 1996 | |
| President | Shankar Dayal Sharma |
| Preceded by | P. V. Narasimha Rao |
| Succeeded by | H. D. Deve Gowda |
| Minister of External Affairs | |
| In office 26 March 1977 – 28 July 1979 | |
| Prime Minister | Morarji Desai |
| Preceded by | Yashwantrao Chavan |
| Succeeded by | Shyam Nandan Prasad Mishra |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 25 December 1924 Gwalior, Gwalior State, British India (now in Madhya Pradesh, India) |
| Died | 16 August 2018 (aged 93) New Delhi, India |
| Political party | Bharatiya Janata Party(1980–2018) |
| Other political affiliations | Janata Party (1977–1980) Bharatiya Jana Sangh(before 1977) |
| Alma mater | DAV College, Kanpur (then affiliated with University of Agra) |
| Profession | Writer, politician, poet |
| Awards | Bharat Ratna 2015 Padma Vibhushan 1992 |
| Signature |  |
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