Atal Bihari Vajpayee

Atal Bihari Vajpayee (25 December 1924[1] – 16 August 2018[2]) was an Indian politician, statesman, and author 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.

He was a member of the Indian Parliament for over five decades, having been elected to the Lok Sabha, the lower house, ten times, and twice to the Rajya Sabha, the upper house. He served as the Member of Parliament for Lucknow until 2009 when he retired from active politics due to health concerns. Vajpayee was among the founding members of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh (BJS), of which he was the president from 1968 to 1972. The BJS merged with several other parties to form the Janata Party, which won the 1977 general election. Vajpayee became the Minister of External Affairs in the cabinet of Prime Minister Morarji Desai. He resigned in 1979, and the Janata alliance collapsed soon after. The erstwhile members of the BJS formed the BJP in 1980, with Vajpayee as its first president.

During his tenure as prime minister, India carried out the Pokhran-II nuclear tests in 1998. Vajpayee sought to improve diplomatic relations with Pakistan, traveling to Lahore by bus to meet with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. After the 1999 Kargil War with Pakistan, he sought to restore relations through engaging with President Pervez Musharraf, inviting him to India for a summit at Agra.

He was conferred India’s highest civilian honor, the Bharat Ratna, by the President of India, Pranab Mukherjee in 2015. The administration of Narendra Modi declared in 2014 that Vajpayee’s birthday, 25 December, would be marked as Good Governance Day. He died on 16 August 2018 due to age-related illness.