Atal Bihari Vajpayee Biodata

Birth Name : Atal Bihari Vajpayee

Date of birth : 25/12/1924

Place of birth : Gwalior, United Provinces, British India

Atal Bihari Vajpayee is an Indian politician who served as the 10th Prime Minister of India. He was born on December 25, 1924 at Gwalior, United Provinces, British India, to 'Krishna Bihari Vajpayee' and 'Krishna Devi'. His grandfather 'Pandit Shyam Lal Vajpayee' had migrated to Gwalior from his ancestral village of Bateshwar, Uttar Pradesh and his father 'Krishna Bihari Vajpayee' was a poet and a schoolmaster in his hometown. Vajpayee never married and remained a bachelor his entire life. He is the only parliamentarian to have been elected from four different states at different times namely UP, MP, Gujarat and Delhi. He won his first election from Balrampur and later he moved to Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, until 2009, when he retired from active politics due to health concerns. Vajpayee renamed his former party Jana Sangh as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Awards

Padma Vibhushan in 1992

D. Lit. from Kanpur University in 1993

Lokmanya Tilak Award in 1994

Best Parliamentarian Award in 1994

Bharat Ratna Pandit Govind Vallabh Pant Award in 1994

Position Held

1942: He took part in Quit India Movement

1957: Vajpayee was elected to Lok Sabha for the first time

1980: He founded the BJP, along with his colleagues from the BJS and RSS

1992: Conferred with the Padma Vibhushan for his contributions to the country

1993: He received the Honorary Doctorate of Philosophy from the Kanpur University

1996: Vajpayee was elected as the Prime Minister of India for the first time

1998: He took the oath for the position of the Prime Minister of India for the second time

1999: Atal Bihari Vajpayee became the Indian Prime Minister for third time and he created history by inaugurating a bus service from Delhi to Lahore in Pakistan

2005: Retired from politics in December

Early Life

Vajpayee did his schooling from the 'Saraswati Shishu Mandir' Gorkhi, Bara, Gwalior. Vajpayee attended Gwalior's Victoria College (now Laxmi Bai College) and graduated with distinction in Hindi, English and Sanskrit. He completed his post-graduation with an M.A. in Political Science from DAV College, Kanpur, in first-class. He became a full-time worker of the Hindu nationalist organisation Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). Vajpayee's first tryst with politics was seen in August 1942, when he and his elder brother 'Prem' were arrested for 23 days during the Quit India movement.

In between 1975 to 1977 Vajpayee was arrested along with several other opposition leaders during the Internal Emergency imposed by Prime Minister 'Indira Gandhi' of the Indian National Congress party. In 1977, heeding the call of social reformer 'Jayaprakash Narayan' for all the opposition parties to unite against the Congress, Vajpayee merged the Jana Sangh into the newly formed grand-alliance the 'Janata Party'.

Vajpayee joined many of his 'Bharatiya Jana Sangh' and 'Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh' colleagues, particularly his long-time friends 'Lal Krishna Advani' and 'Bhairon Singh Shekhawat', to form the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 1980. He became the BJP's first President. He emerged as a strong critic of the Congress government that followed the Janata government.

As prime minister

Vajpayee served as the Prime Minister of India from 1996 to 2004 in three non-consecutive terms. 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 in accordance with the Westminster custom. Vajpayee was sworn in as the 11th Prime Minister of India, but the BJP failed to muster enough support from other parties to obtain a majority. He resigned after 13 days, when it became clear that he could not garner a majority. Between 1996 and 1998, Lok Sabha, the lower house of India's Parliament was dissolved and fresh elections were held. The 1998 general elections again put the BJP ahead of others. This time, a cohesive bloc of political parties joined the BJP to form the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), and A.B. Vajpayee was sworn in as the Prime Minister.

Later Life

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 BJP's silver Jubilee rally at Mumbai's historic Shivaji Park, Vajpayee announced that "Henceforth, Lal Krishna Advani and Pramod Mahajan will be the Ram-Laxman of the BJP. The tall apolitical image of Vajpayee was said to be the main reason behind Lalji's success in Lucknow even though BJP's performance was poor elsewhere in Uttar Pradesh. Vajpayee has expressed very clear thoughts about his poetry: 'My poetry is a declaration of war, not an exordium to defeat. It is not the defeated soldier's drumbeat of despair, but the fighting warrior's will to win. It is not the despirited voice of dejection but the stirring shout of victory.