On Wednesday evening, the AIIMS had issued a statement saying that the former Prime Minister’s ‘condition had worsened’. Vajpayee was put on life support system later.
Atal Bihari Vajpayee, three-time Prime minister, Bharat Ratna and first president of the Bhartiya Janata Party, died at 5:05 PM after battling age-related ailments for nine weeks at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi on Thursday. One of India’s most memorable Prime Ministers, he was 93. He was awarded the Bharat Ratna in 2015.
On Wednesday evening, the AIIMS had issued a statement saying that the former Prime Minister’s ‘condition had worsened’. Vajpayee was put on life support system later.
Senior BJP leaders including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Ministers Piyush Goyal, Smriti Irani and party lawmaker Meenakshi Lekhi had visited the AIIMS on Wednesday evening.
Vajpayee was admitted at the AIIMS on June 11 with a kidney tract infection, urinary tract infection, low urine output and chest congestion.
The 93-year-old Bharatiya Janata Party patriarch, a diabetic, has only one functional kidney. He had suffered a stroke in 2009 that weakened his cognitive abilities. Subsequently, he developed dementia. As his health deteriorated, he slowly withdrew from public life and has been confined to his residence for many years.
EARLY LIFE AND INFLUENCES
Born on December 25, 1924 in a Brahmin family in the royal state of Gwalior (present day Madhya Pradesh) of pre-Independent India, Vajpayee completed his early education from the Saraswati Shishu Mandir. He had flair for languages and completed his graduation with distinction in English, Hindi and Sanskrit.
Later, he moved to Kanpur in present day Uttar Pradesh to complete his Masters. It was here that he got in touch with Arya Samaj. Influenced by their workings, Vajpayee later joined the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. He actively participated in India’s freedom struggle and was jailed for his anti-British protests.
WHEN NEHRU PREDICTED VAJPAYEE’S FUTURE
What set apart Vajpayee from other politicians was his unflinching personal integrity. Known as an ‘honest politician’, he was respected across party lines. In fact, it is said that India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru once saw Vajpayee and had said that this young man will one day become India’s Prime Minister.
TAKING HINDI ON GLOBAL STAGE
The credit of taking Hindi to global stage solely goes to Vajpayee. As foreign minister in the Janata Dal government, Vajpayee made his United Nations debut in 1977. He became the first Indian leader to address the United Nations General Assembly in Hindi. At that point, India had a marginal role in a bipolar world and despite a change of regime in the country, New Delhi's foreign policy had yet to witness a decisive shift as a result of which non-alignment was still referred by Vajpayee as "a projection of national sovereignty in international relations" and "its essence" was "not neutrality but freedom".
The landmark speech was the moment which saw the emergence of Vajpayee, the statesman politician.
LAHORE, KARGIL AND BEYOND
A master orator and a poet who loved cooking, Vajpayee’s legacy will include Pokharan-II that made India a nuclear superpower in 1998. Only non-Congress Prime Minister to complete his term, Vajpayee also dealt with host of issues such as IC814 hijacking drama, Lahore bus trip and Kargil.
While many may see his Lahore trip as a disaster as it was followed by the Kargil War, the fact remains Vajpayee was a gusty leader with pragmatic approach who genuinely tried to resolve the chronic issue of trust deficit between India and Pakistan.
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