Former PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee passes away at 93

ONI Bureau:  Nation lost the most large-hearted person today. Former Prime Minister & Bharat Ratna Atal Bihari Vajpayee breathed his last at AIIMS in New Delhi today. He was 93.

Vajpayee ji was admitted in the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) for over 2 months, was critical and on life support system.

Atal Bihari Vajpayee was admitted to the hospital on June 11. The 93-year-old leader has been suffering from urinary tract infection, lower respiratory tract infection, chest congestion and kidney problems. He has only one functional kidney and suffered a stroke in 2009 that weakened his cognitive abilities.

Born 25 December 1924, 93 years Vajpayee ji served as the Prime Minister of India. First for a term of 13 days in 1996, 1998-1999, and then from 1998-2004. He was a member of the Indian Parliament for over four decades.

His courageous decision to go for the 2nd nuclear test (Pokhran-II) was the beginning of an India to calculate with.

He was became a full-time worker of RSS in 1947 and began working for the newspapers of Deendayal Upadhyaya, Rashtradharma (a Hindi monthly).

He was conferred India’s highest civilian honour, the Bharat Ratna, by the President of India in 2014. Modi Government in 2014 declared Vajpayee’s birthday, would be marked as Good Governance Day.

In view of Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s critical health, BJP has suspended all its programmes. An event scheduled for 20 August where Prime Minister Narendra Modi was to launch a book on Vice-President M Venkaiah Naidu’s one year in office has also been postponed.