India Pays Tribute to Former PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee on 95th Birth Anniversary

Guwahati, December 25, 2019:

"If India is not a secular nation, then India is not India at all"

- Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee

The nation is celebrating the 95th birth anniversary of the statesman, philosopher, and visionary politician, Lt. Atal Bihari Vajpayee, on Wednesday.

President Ram Nath Kovind, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and several union ministers paid tribute to the former Prime Minister of India at Sadaiv Atal--the memorial to Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

Born in 25 December 1924 in Gwalior, Lt. Atal Bihari Vajpayee was famously known for his poetry.

जूझने का मेरा इरादा न था,

मोड़ पर मिलेंगे इसका वादा न था,

रास्ता रोक कर वह खड़ी हो गई,

यूं लगा जिंदगी से बड़ी हो गई।

मौत की उमर क्या है? दो पल भी नहीं,

जिंदगी सिलसिला, आज कल की नहीं।

मैं जी भर जिया, मैं मन से मरूं,

लौटकर आऊंगा, कूच से क्यों डरूं? - AtalBihariVajpayee

The oratory and visionary leader was the Indian Prime Minister who gave the go-ahead to the nuclear tests of 1998. Under his leadership, India defeated Pakistan in the Kargil War of 1999.

Vajpayee said, “You can change friends but not neighbors”, and continued his quest for peace with Pakistan and indulged in bilateral talks with the then Pak military dictator Pervez Musharraf. Vajpayee went to Lahore to meet the then Pak PM Nawaz Sharif, starting the famous bus service between Delhi and Lahore before war broke out between the two countries.

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With the belief that "India is not a piece of land but a living entity", Vajpayee was known for his bold decisions for the development of the country. Under his leadership, in March 2000, Bill Clinton, the then US President visited India which was the first state visit to India by a U.S. President. This happened 22 years after President Jimmy Carter's visit India in 1978. Vajpayee was also one of BJP's leading advocated in matters that concern the party's core ideology including the Ram Mandir and revocation of Article 370.

Ahead of Indian Cricket Team's famous tour to Pakistan in 2004, the former PM met the team and presented a bat to the team captain, Saurav Ganguly, where he wrote the famous quote, “Khel hi nahi, dil bhi jeeto”.

The BJP veteran leader passed away on August 16, 2018. He breathed his last at 5.05 pm at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi, where he was admitted due to a kidney tract infection, urinary tract infection, low urine output and chest congestion on 11th June.

Vajpayee was the first non-Congress Prime Minister to have served a full term in office. He was Prime Minister thrice – first, for a term of 13 days in 1996, then for a period of 11 months from 1998 to 1999, and finally from 1999 to 2004.

As his saying, “It is easy to win elections by raising slogan of garibi hatao but slogans do not remove poverty,” Vajpayee was credited with increasing the pace of India’s economic reforms, which somehow slowed down due to several factors after they were initiated in 1991.

It was also during Vajpayee’s term that the East-West and North-South corridors were launched, besides the Golden Quadrilateral highways project initiated. The Sarva Siksha Abhiyan is also a legacy of his rule.

India’s longest bridge, the Bhupen Hazarika Bridge between Dhola and Sadiya in Assam, was approved during his reign in 2003.

He was a Member of Parliament (MP) for over four decades, being elected to the Lok Sabha 10 times and twice to the Rajya Sabha. He represented Lucknow in Lok Sabha until 2009 when he retired from active politics due to health reasons.

He is the only parliamentarian elected from four different States at different times – Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, and Delhi.

Vajpayee was among the founding members of the erstwhile Bharatiya Jana Sangh, which he also headed from 1968 to 1972. He was Minister of External Affairs in the Prime Minister Morarji Desai cabinet.

When the Janata government collapsed, Vajpayee restructured the Jana Sangh into BJP in 1980.

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He was conferred the Bharat Ratna, India’s highest civilian honour, by the President of India in 2014. His birthday on 25th December is being observed as Good Governance Day since 2014 by the Modi government.

It was during Vajpayee’s second term that India formally became a nuclear power when he ordered the detonation of five underground nuclear devices at Pokharan in Rajasthan in May 1998.

He was widely praised for his bold decisions that ensured the defeat of Pakistan during the Kargil War in 1990.

Vajpayee was perhaps one of the very few Prime Ministers of India whose popularity cut across political lines and geographical divides as his consensual style of function and leadership endeared him even to his staunch political opponents. No wonder, he led coalition governments in two of his three terms, with the last term seeing an alliance of 24 parties.

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