Last updated on July 25th, 2023 at 05:02 pm
On 25 December 1924, Vajpayee was born into a Hindu Brahmin family in Gwalior, Madhya Pradesh. His father was Krishna Bihari Vajpayee and his mother was Krishna Devi. Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s father was a schoolteacher in their hometown.
Atal Bihari Vajpayee was an Indian politician, writer, and statesman who served three terms as the 10th prime minister of India. He was in office for a term of 13 days in 1996, then for a period of 13 months from 1998 to 1999, followed by a full term from 1999 to 2004. BJP co-founder and senior leader Vajpayee. A Hindu nationalist volunteer organization, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, was a member.
He was the first Indian prime minister not belonging to the Indian National Congress to serve a full term in office. He was a renowned poet and writer. After being elected ten times to the Lok Sabha, the lower house, and twice to the Rajya Sabha, the upper house, he was a member of the Indian Parliament for over five decades.
Due to health concerns, he retired from active politics in 2009 after serving as the Member of Parliament for Lucknow. He was one of the founding members of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh (BJS) and served as its president from 1968 to 1972. After merging with several other parties, the BJS went on to form the Janata Party which won the 1977 general election.
Vajpayee became the Minister of External Affairs in the cabinet of Prime Minister Morarji Desai in March 1977. After he resigned in 1979, the Janata alliance soon collapsed. The BJP was formed in 1980 by former members of the BJS, with Vajpayee as its first president.
The Pokhran-II nuclear tests were carried out in 1998 during his tenure as prime minister. In an effort to improve diplomatic relations with Pakistan, Vajpayee traveled to Lahore by bus to meet with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.
He sought to restore relations with Pakistan after the 1999 Kargil War through engagement with President Pervez Musharraf, inviting him to India for a summit at Agra.
In 2014, the administration of Narendra Modi declared that Vajpayee’s birthday, 25 December, would be marked as Good Governance Day.
Pranab Mukherjee, the president of India, conferred India’s highest civilian honor, the Bharat Ratna, on him in 2015.
After being hospitalized in June 2018 for a kidney infection, the veteran politician passed away on August 16, 2018.
