As the government named Atal Bihari Vajpayee for the Bharat Ratna, senior BJP leader L.K. Advani has said that the former prime minister’s tenure at the helm was “blemishless” and he did not think that the 1999 Kargil conflict and the 2002 Gujarat riots could be considered negative points. Shri Advani, who was home minister and also deputy prime minister in the Vajpayee-led NDA government, said among all the prime ministers since independence there was “not a blot” on Vajpayee’s tenure. He said in his blog, he has pointed out there have been 14 prime ministers of Bharat since 1947, with the foremost among them being Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi.
Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee, a veteran Bharatiya politician for over four decades, has served the country as the 10th Prime Minister. The tenure of his Prime Minister ship includes three non-consecutive terms, the first being in 1996 for 13 days, the second from 1998 to 1999 for a period of 13 months, and a full five-year term from 1999 to 2004. In his political stint he has been elected nine times in the Lok Sabha or the Lower House of the Parliament and twice in the Rajya Sabha or the Upper House of the Parliament. He has contested from four different states of Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi and Gujarat in different elections. The first election that Vajpayee won was from Balrampur. He was a member the Bharatiya Jana Sangh party that was initiated by Shri Shyama Prasad Mookerjee on 21October 1951. Vajpayee served as the President of the party from 1969 to 1972. Atal Bihari Vajpayee was also the Foreign Minister of Bharat in 1977 when Janata Party won Lok Sabha elections and Morarji Desai became the new Prime Minister of Bharat.
Atal Bihari Vajpayee was born on 25 December 1924 in Gwalior to a middle-class Brahmin family of Shri Krishna Bihari Vajpayee and Smt. Krishna Devi. Pandit Shyam Lal Vajpayee, grandfather of Atal Bihari Vajpayee, migrated to Gwalior from their ancestral village Bateshwar in Uttar Pradesh. His father was a school master and a poet. Atalji completed his schooling from Saraswati Shishu Mandir, Gorkhi in Gwalior. He completed his graduation in Hindi, Sanskrit and English from the Victoria College in Gwalior, now known as the Laxmi Bai College. Thereafter, he studied in DAV College, Kanpur and completed his M.A. in Political Science with a first-class degree.
He is fondly called Baapji by his close relatives and friends. He remained single for his entire life and later adopted a daughter, Namita. He loves Bharatiya music and dance. Atal Bihari Vajpayee is a nature lover and Manali in Himachal Pradesh is one of his favoured retreats.
He has retired from politics due to health issues and is currently known to be suffering from dementia and diabetes. Close aides say he fails to recognize people and mostly stays at home, except for his check-ups that are conducted at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences.
His first encounter with politics was during August 1942 at the time of the Quit India Movement. Vajpayee and his elder brother Prem faced arrest for 23 days. He joined the Bharatiya Jana Sangh when it was newly formed in 1951 and subsequently became motivated by the party leader Shri Shyama Prasad Mookerjee. He was with Shri Shyama Prasad Mookerjee when the latter observed a fast unto death in 1951 in Kashmir against the supposed inferior treatment shown towards non-Kashmiri visitors. During this strike Shri Shyama Prasad Mookerjee died in prison.
Vajpayee studied law for some time but did not complete the course as he was more inclined towards journalism. This selection might have been influenced from the fact that he was an activist in Bharat’s freedom struggle from his student life. He served as an editor to publications like Panchjanya, a Hindi weekly; Rashtradharma, a Hindi monthly; and dailies like Veer Arjun and Swadesh.
