Atal Bihari Vajpayee

1. Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee Born on December 25, 1924 at Gwalior, Madhya Pradesh to Shri Krishna Bihari Vajpayee and Smt. Krishna Devi.Educated at Victoria (now Laxmi Bai) College, Gwalior and DAV College, Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh, Shri Vajpayee holds an M.A (Political Science) degree and has many literary, artistic and scientific accomplishments to his credit.He brings with him a long parliamentary experience spanning over four decades. He has been a .....

Childhood Early Life

2. Atal Bihari Vajpayee was born into a middle class family in Gwalior. His father was Krishna Bihari Vajpayee, a school teacher and poet, and his mother was Krishna Devi.He attended the Saraswati Shishu Mandir and later went to Victoria College from where he graduated with distinction in Hindi, English and Sanskrit.He enrolled at DAV College, Kanpur to complete his post graduation and earned his M.A. in Political science. He was a patriot at heart .....

Political Career

3. He became associated with the Bharatiya Jana Sangh (BJS), a right wing political party founded by Syama Prasad Mookerjee in 1951. He became a loyal follower of Mookerjee and supported him during his fast unto death in Kashmir in 1954.Vajpayee was elected to the Lok Sabha for the first time from Balrampur (U.P.) in 1957. He proved himself to be an excellent orator and gave powerful speeches.He was made the national president of the Jana Sangh in 1 .....

Career as the Prime Minister

4. The BJP emerged the single largest party in Lok Sabha in the 1996 general elections. Vajpayee was sworn in as the Prime Minister in May 1996. However, he resigned after 13 days since BJP could not obtain a majority.He was again sworn in as the Prime Minister in 1998 after BJP emerged as the single largest party and formed the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) with other political parties. This government lasted for a little over a year when fres .....

Major Works

5. Nuclear tests conducted in 1998 during his reign unambiguously established India as a nuclear state and the country was able to develop a minimum credible deterrent to ward off threats to its security.The National Highways Develop Project (NHDP) and Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY) were two projects that were very close to his heart. NHDP involves connecting the four major cities of Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata. PMGSY is a nationwid .....

Awards Achievements

6. He was awarded the Padma Vibhushan, the second highest civilian award in India in 1992 for his distinguished contribution in public affairs.He was honored with Best Parliamentarian Award in 1994. .....

Personal Life Legacy

7. Vajpayee is a bachelor. He has one adopted daughter, Namita, and is very close to his friends and relatives.He has a deep love for the Hindi language and has written several poems.He is nearing 90 years of age and suffers from various health problems including dementia and diabetes. .....

Trivia

8. Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh called him the Bhishma Pitamah of Indian Politics.His favourite singers are Lata Mangeshkar, Mukesh and Mohd. Rafi.This towering political personality is the only parliamentarian to have been elected from four different states at different times namely UP, MP, Gujarat and Delhi. .....

Bharatiya Janata Party

9. Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Bihari also spelled Behari (born December 25, 1924, Gwalior, Madhya Pradesh, India), leader of the pro Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and twice prime minister of India (1996; 1998?2004).Vajpayee was first elected to Parliament in 1957 as a member of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh (BJS), a forerunner of the BJP. In 1977 the BJS joined three other parties to form the Janata Party, which led a government that lasted until July 19 .....

Education

10. Atal Bihari Vajpayee was born to Krishna Devi and Krishna Bihari Vajpayee on 25 December 1924 in a middle class Brahmin family in Gwalior. His grandfather, Pandit Shyam Lal Vajpayee, had migrated to Gwalior from his ancestral village of Bateshwar, Uttar Pradesh. His father, Krishna Bihari Vajpayee, was a poet and a schoolmaster in his hometown. Vajpayee studied from the Saraswati Shishu Mandir, Gorkhi, Bara, Gwalior. Vajpayee attended Gwaliors Vi .....

As prime minister of India

11. First term May 1996 The BJP grew in strength in the early 1995s riding on pro nationalistic sentiments. In the 1996 general elections, the BJP emerged as the single largest party in the Lok Sabha. The then president Shankar Dayal Sharma invited Vajpayee to form the government. Vajpayee was sworn in as the 10th Prime Minister of India, but the BJP failed to muster enough support from other parties to obtain a majority. He resigned after 13 days, w .....

The Lahore summit

12. In late 1998 and early 1999, Vajpayee began a push for a full scale diplomatic peace process with Pakistan. With the historic inauguration of the Delhi Lahore bus service in February 1999, Vajpayee initiated a new peace process aimed towards permanently resolving the Kashmir dispute and other conflicts with Pakistan. The resultant Lahore Declaration espoused a commitment to dialogue, expanded trade relations and mutual friendship and envisaged a .....

Kargil War

13. It was revealed that militants and non uniformed Pakistani soldiers (many with official identifications and Pakistan Armys custom weaponry) had infiltrated into the Kashmir Valley and captured control of border hilltops, unmanned border posts and were spreading out fast. The incursion was centred around the town of Kargil, but also included the Batalik and Akhnoor sectors and artillery exchanges at the Siachen Glacier.Indian army units were swift .....

Indian Airlines hijack

14. A national crisis emerged in December 1999, when Indian Airlines flight IC 814 from Kathmandu to New Delhi was hijacked by five terrorists and flown to Taliban ruled Afghanistan.The hijackers made several demands including the release of certain terrorists like Maulana Masood Azhar from prison. Under extreme pressure, the government ultimately caved in. Jaswant Singh, the Minister for External Affairs at the time, flew with the terrorists to Afgh .....

2001 attack on Parliament

15. On 13 December 2001, a group of masked, armed men with fake IDs stormed the Parliament building in Delhi. The terrorists managed to kill several security guards, but the building was sealed off swiftly and security forces cornered and killed the men, who were later proven to be Pakistan nationals. Coming just three months after the September 11 attacks upon the United States, this fresh escalation instantly enraged the nation. Although the Govern .....

2002 Gujarat violence

16. In 2002, Hindu Muslim violence in the state Gujarat killed more than 1,000 people. Vajpayee officially condemned the violence.Later, Vajpayee is said to have made controversial remarks Wherever there are Muslims in large numbers, they do not want to live in peace. The remarks were clarified by the Prime Ministers Office as being taken out of context.Vajpayee was accused of doing nothing to stop the violence, and later admitted mistakes in the han .....

Travel and diplomatic assignments

17. Vajpayee has visited several countries, first in 1965 as a member of the Parliamentary Goodwill Mission to East Africa. He was also part of the Parliamentary Delegations to Australia in 1967, the European Parliament in 1983, and Canada in 1987. He was part of the official Indian Delegation to Commonwealth Parliamentary Association meetings held in Canada in 1966 and 1994, Zambia in 1980, and the Isle of Man in 1984. He was in the Indian delegatio .....

Later career

18. In December 2005, Vajpayee announced his retirement from active politics, declaring that he would not contest in the next general election. In a famous statement at the BJPs silver Jubilee rally at Mumbais historic Shivaji Park, Vajpayee announced that Henceforth, Lal Krishna Advani and Pramod Mahajan will be the Ram Laxman (the two godly brothers much revered and worshipped by Hindus) of the BJP.Vajpayee was referred to as the Bhishma Pitamah of .....

Personal life and interests

19. Vajpayee has an adopted daughter, Namita. He is fond of Indian music and dance. He loves nature and one of his favourite retreats is Manali in Himachal Pradesh.Vajpayee has said about his poetry, My poetry is a declaration of war, not an exordium to defeat. It is not the defeated soldiers drumbeat of despair, but the fighting warriors will to win. It is not the despirited voice of dejection but the stirring shout of victory. .....

Health issues

20. Vajpayee underwent knee replacement surgery at Breach Candy Hospital in Mumbai in 2001. He suffered a stroke in 2009 which impaired his speech. His health has been a major source of concern and those in the know say he is often confined to a wheelchair and fails to recognise people. He is said to be suffering from dementia and long term diabetes. He is not known to have attended any public event in recent years. He rarely ventures out of the hous .....

personal background

21. Atal Bihari Vajpayee was born on 25 December 1924 in Gwalior to a middle class Brahmin family of Shri Krishna Bihari Vajpayee and Smt. Krishna Devi. Pandit Shyam Lal Vajpayee, grandfather of Atal Bihari Vajpayee, migrated to Gwalior from their ancestral village Bateshwar in Uttar Pradesh. His father was a school master and a poet. Atalji completed his schooling from Saraswati Shishu Mandir, Gorkhi in Gwalior. He completed his graduation in Hindi, .....

Professional Life of Atal Bihari Vajpayee

22. His first encounter with politics was during August 1942 at the time of the Quit India Movement. Vajpayee and his elder brother Prem faced arrest for 23 days. He joined the Bharatiya Jana Sangh when it was newly formed in 1951 and subsequently became motivated by the party leader Shri Shyama Prasad Mookerjee. He was with Shri Shyama Prasad Mookerjee when the latter observed a fast unto death in 1951 in Kashmir against the supposed inferior treatm .....