Modi makes courtesy calls on Vajpayee, George Fernandes

New Delhi, Oct 11: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday made courtesy calls on former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and former union minister George Fernandes.

Modi visited the two leaders on the occasion of the 113th birth anniversary of Loknayak Jayaprakash Narayan, who gave the call of ‘Sampoorna Kranti’ (total revolution) against the then Indira Gandhi government leading up to the Emergency.

Both Vajpayee and Fernandes were among the key leaders who fought against the Emergency.

Vajpayee was then a leader of Bharatiya Jana Sangh, the predecessor of the Bharatiya Janata Party. The Jana Sangh was one of the opposition parties to rally behind Jayaprakash Narayan against the Indira Gandhi government.

Fernandes was a senior member of then prime minister Morarji Desai’s cabinet when the Janata Party took office in 1977. He founded the Samata Party in 1994, which later merged with Janata Dal-United. That party is at present in power in Bihar.

Ailing for a while now, both Vajpayee and Fernandes have been away from politics and public limelight.