Atal Bihari Vajpayee

Atal Bihari Vajpayee was an Indian poet, politician and writer who served as the prime minister of India, in three terms. His first term in PMO was for a short 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. He was the first non-Congress prime minister of India who completed full term of five years in the Prime Minister’s Office. He was one of the co-founders and a senior leader of BJP which is the acronym for Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Vajpayee was a member of the hindu organisation Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh or RSS.

Vajpayee was born on December 25th, 1924 into a Brahmin family in Gwalior, (Madhya Pradesh, India). His parents were Krishna Bihari Vajpayee who was a school teacher and mother was Krishna Devi who was a house wife. Vajpayee received a bachelor’s degree in Hindi, Sanskrit and English from Victoria College (now Maharani Laxmi Bai Arts and Commerce College) in Gwalior. He completed MA in political science from Dayanand Anglo-Vedic College in Kanpur, where he took a keen interest in foreign affairs. During his college days, as an active member of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh Vajpayee edited many Hindi publications, including the RSS magazine Panchjanya. In 1951, Vajpayee along with Deendayal Upadhyaya, joined Bharatiya Jana Sangh, a political party associated with the RSS. He was appointed as a national secretary of the party in charge of the Northern region, based in Delhi. Vajpayee became a staunch follower of party leader S. P. Mukherjee. In the general elections conducted in 1957, Vajpayee contested elections to the Lok Sabha, from Mathura and Balrampur. Even though he lost the Mathura seat he was elected from Balrampur.

In 1977 Vajpayee’s Baratiya Jana Sangh merged with Bharatiya Lok Dal, Socialist Party and a faction of Congress to form the Janata Party, which resoundingly defeated Indira Gandhi’s Congress Party in that year’s general election. Morarji Desai was sworn in as the prime minister of the Janata Party government, and Vajpayee joined the Cabinet as minister of external affairs. Due to infighting, Janata Party government collapsed in 1979 and in the next general elections in January 1980 Vajpayee contested as a Janata Party candidate from New Delhi and won. Vajpayee played a crucial role in the formation of Baratiya Janata Party and became its first president. He contested the 1984 Lok Sabha elections as a BJP candidate from Gwalior but lost. In 1991 he was elected to the Lok Sabha as a member of the BJP.

The BJP emerged as the single largest party in the 1996 general election, and Vajpayee was invited by then President Dr. Shankar Dayal Sharma to form the government. Vajpayee was sworn in as prime minister in May 1996 but he failed to get an absolute majority and was in office only for 13 days. In the 1998 general elections, even though BJP won more seats than it had in previous years, it failed to secure an absolute majority. The BJP entered a shaky alliance with regional parties and formed the government with Vajpayee as prime minister. In the year 1999, as the AIADMK party left the coalition, Vajpayee government lost majority by only one vote and had to resign again. Later that year the BJP-led NDA coalition increased its seats in the general election and formed a stable government. Vajpayee government completed its term of five years in the PM Office in 2004 but failed to get majority in the next general elections conducted in 2004. Vajpayee declared his retirement from active politics at the end of 2005.

Vajpayee had been elected nine times to the Lok Sabha and twice to the Rajya Sabha. In 1992 he received the Padma Vibhushan, India’s second highest civilian honor, and later in the year 1994 he received the best parliamentarian award. In 2015 he was granted the Bharat Ratna, India’s highest civilian honor. Vajpayee died at age 93 of age-related illnesses. Atal Bihari Vajpayee was cremated at Rashtriya Smriti Sthal, near Raj Ghat in Delhi, which is near to the cremation grounds of former prime ministers, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi.