NEW DELHI: Former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, 93, who led BJP to pathbreaking electoral victories,
headed coalitions at the Centre from 1998 to 2004 and became the first non-Congress PM to complete a full
term, passed away on Thursday after a prolonged illness.
The end came at 5.05 pm when All India Institute of Medical Sciences announced that Vajpayee had died despite
all efforts to save him. Admitted to AIIMS on June 11, he could not be discharged in the last nine weeks. His
condition deteriorated over the last 36 hours and he was on life support. The first PM who had never been a
Congress member, he will be cremated at 4pm at Rashtriya Smriti Sthal between Shanti Van and Vijay Ghat.
A memorial will be built, though its location is not yet decided. The AIIMS statement came after PM Narendra
Modi visited Vajpayee for the second time in 24 hours, amid indications that he was sliding. A diabetic,
Vajpayee had one functioning kidney, and had lost much of his cognitive functions after a stroke in 2009. Later,
he developed dementia. Vajpayee was thrice elected PM, the first time briefly for 13 days in 1996.
His trademark oratory, broad moderate appeal, strong commitment to economic reforms and right of centre
politics saw him enlarge BJP’s electoral appeal beyond its core constituency. His success as PM, a tenure
marked by the bold embrace of the US as a strategic partner, was instrumental in making BJP a major
mainstream party and moved the Right to the centrestage as a popular alternative to Nehruvian socialism.
The brightest of saffron stars, Vajpayee, along with L K Advani, dominated BJP almost since its inception in
1980. The two were leading figures even in the erstwhile Jana Sangh. A lengthy political career saw him make a mark as foreign minister in the opposition ‘unity’ government of Janata Party in 1977-80, during which he
delivered a speech in Hindi, the first such one by an Indian leader, at the United Nations. Soon after the defeat
and break-up of Janata Party over, among other things, the “dual loyalty” of those who had RSS links, Vajpayee
became president of BJP and experimented with ‘Gandhian socialism’ before the party returned to its Hindutva
roots with a fullthroated campaign for the Ram temple.
While Advani is seen as the architect of the Ram Janmabhoomi movement, sharpening BJP’s attack on
‘pseudosecularism’, Vajpayee was often a counterfoil, presenting a more moderate face with a lesser emphasis
on the Ayodhya movement. This, however, could be deceptive as he was critical of Congress’s “Muslim
appeasement” and denounced the P V Narasimha Rao government’s decision to bring in a law freezing the status
of all shrines as of August 15, 1947, barring those in Ayodhya, Mathura and Varanasi.
He called the demolition of Babri Masjid unfortunate, but insisted that it could have been avoided had the
Congress government and non-BJP parties agreed to let construction work for the Ram temple begin on an
adjoining plot. As news of his deteriorating health spread, chief ministers of NDA-ruled states made a beeline to
the capital and senior ministers visited AIIMS. After his passing, Vajpayee’s body was placed at his residence at
Krishna Menon Marg.
The post PM, poet, statesman, gentleman: Atal Bihari Vajpayee passes appeared first on Rava.
from Rava https://ift.tt/2vQg91F
0 comments:
Post a Comment