Prime Minister Narendra Modi, President Droupadi Murmu, and Vice President C P Radhakrishnan were among the dignitaries who attended a prayer ceremony at the memorial of former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee on his 101st birth anniversary.
PM Modi said Vajpayee’s personality, work and leadership will continue to be a guiding light for the all-around development of the nation, and remembered the leader for dedicating his entire life to good governance and nation-building.
“He will always be remembered as a brilliant orator as well as a spirited poet. Vajpayee's personality, work and leadership will continue to be a guiding light for the all-around development of the nation,” PM Modi wrote on X.
Others who paid tributes to the late BJP leader at his memorial, ‘Sadaiv Atal’, include former vice president M Venkaiah Naidu, Lok Sabha Speaker, Om Birla, Union Ministers J P Nadda, Nirmala Sitharaman, NDA ally JD-U leader and Union Minister Rajiv Ranjan Singh, several other ministers, MPs, Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta, and BJP working president Nitin Nabin.
Vajpayee was born on December 25, 1924, in Gwalior and passed away in New Delhi on August 16, 2018. The government observes his birth anniversary as Good Governance Day.
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He was India’s 13th prime minister and served the country for three terms between 1996 and 2004.
Vajpayee, besides contributing immensely to India’s economic growth, was also a renowned poet. It was during his tenure as prime minister that ‘Operation Vijay’, commonly known as the Kargil War, was fought against Pakistan and won. He is also credited for making India a nuclear weapons power.
His four-decade-long parliamentary career included being elected nine times to the Lok Sabha and twice to the Rajya Sabha.
He received the Padma Vibhushan in 1992 for his selfless dedication to the nation and was conferred with Bharat Ratna, India’s highest civilian honour, in 2015.
As prime minister, he prioritised good governance and economic development, building national highways, rural roads, expanding telecom, and improving infrastructure, and was a champion of women’s empowerment, social equality and democratic ideals.
The BJP marked the day of his birth anniversary by organising programmes in his memory across the nation with chief ministers, Union ministers and MPs in attendance.
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