Atal Bihari Vajpayee BR ( 25 December 1924 – 16 August 2018)
was an Indian politician who served three terms as the Prime Minister of India:
first for a term of 13 days in 1996, then for a period of 13 months from 1998
to 1999, and finally, for a full term from 1999 to 2004. A member of the
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), 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.
From being one of the earliest members of the Bharatiya Jana
Sangh, Vajpayee blossomed into a leading opposition MP by the late 1960s, went
on to become External Affairs Minister in the short-lived Janata government
and, finally in 1999, to head the first non-Congress government to complete a
full term in office. That it was a coalition government made the feat all the
more remarkable and testifies to the fact that though wedded to a right-wing
political ideology, Vajpayee did not believe in the politics of exclusion. A
protege of Jana Sangh stalwarts like Syama Prasad Mukherjee and Deen Dayal
Upadhyaya, Vajpayee won the admiration of Jawaharlal Nehru, was consulted by
his daughter Indira Gandhi - whom he never lacked the courage to criticize-and
befriended by fiery trade unionist George Fernandes even before they became
political allies. He thus displayed an unusual ability to carry along all
shades of political opinion - an ability that came to the fore when he headed
the National Democratic Alliance government between 1999 and 2004. And behind
this public persona was an unusual personal life, conducted with such dignity
as to remain free of innuendo.
- By Bhavya Bhatia
- By Bhavya Bhatia
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