New Delhi, Veteran
Parliamentarian and former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, founder member
of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) who is held in high esteem across the political
spectrum, was today conferred with Bharat Ratna, the country’s highest civilian
award, by President Pranab Mukherjee
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In a
departure from protocol, Mukherjee drove to Vajpayee’s residence at Krishna
Memon marg in Lutyens’ Delhi and presented to the ailing BJP leader the
prestigious award, the country’s highest civilian honour.
The
event, which was attended by Vice President Hamid Ansari, Prime Minister
Narendra Modi and Home Minister Rajnath Singh along with some close family
members, was kept away from the media glare.
Vajpayee,
who was Prime Minister from 1998 to 2004, and has faded from public life due to
age-related illness, is lauded as a statesman and has been often described as
the moderate face of BJP.
He has
been credited with taking bold initiatives, notable among them being the
historic bus journey to Lahore in 1999 when he signed the landmark Lahore
Declaration with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif with both sides pledging to push
for peace and security.
Later,
a tea party was hosted in the lawns of the residence which was attended by
union ministers and state Chief Ministers including Jammu and Kashmir’s Mufti
Mohammed Sayeed.
The
announcement for a Bharat Ratna for Vajpayee, the first Prime Minister from
outside the Congress party to serve a full five-year term, came on December 24,
a day before he turned 90.
Vajpayee’s
detractors called him the “mask” of RSS but still always had good words for
him.
Regarded
as one of the most charismatic leaders, he was lauded as a statesman politician
whose acceptability across the board broke barriers and brought BJP to centre
stage of politics in the late 1990s after the demolition of Babri Masjid.
The
Prime Minister expressed his happiness over the award that was conferred on
Vajpayee by the President and said he was leader who had dedicated his entire
life for the nation.
“One
who dedicated his life, such Mother India’s dear son, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, we
have got the privilege to confer the Bharat Ratna Award on him today.
“I
express my gratitude to the President who himself came here and personally
bestowed upon him, the Bharat Ratna award.
“Atalji’s
life was dedicated to the nation, he lived and thought for the nation for every
second. In India there are crores of workers like me in whose life Vajpayee ji
is an inspiration.
“The upcoming generations will
continue to be inspired by him. I will pray to God for this only that Bharat
Ratna Awardee Vajpayee ji’s life continues to inspire and guide us forever,” he
said.
Emerging
from Vajpayee’s residence, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley told reporters that
Bharat Ratna was conferred on the former Prime Minister by the President at a
brief ceremony because of “Vajpayee does not go out on account of his health
reasons.”
The
honour is in recognition of his services to the country as a “powerful
nationalist leader, one of the longest serving Parliamentarians, a poet and a
thinker who was not leader of his own party but of the entire country,” he
said.
A
veteran Parliamentarian, he was not only a leader of India but of the whole
world. He left an indelible imprint as a philosopher, poet and Prime Minister,
Jaitley said, adding, “it is an occasion of joy for each one of us.” He said
the function held at Vajpayee’s residence was on behalf of Rashtrapati Bhavan. Former
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, BJP patron L K Advani, RSS Chief Mohan Bhagwat,
Chief Ministers Prakash Singh Badal (Punjab), Vasundhra Raje (Rajasthan),
Shivraj Singh Chouhan (Madhya Pradesh) and N Chnadrababu Naidu (Andhra Pradesh)
besides JD(U) leader Sharad Yadav were among those present. An
orator par excellence and known for taking bold initiatives, Vajpayee was
widely respected within the country and abroad as a statesman of the genre of
Jawaharlal Nehru.
Vajpayee’s
tenure from 1998-99 as prime minister saw his boldness as during this period
India conducted a series of successive nuclear tests at Pokhran in May 1998. He
always wanted to improve relations with Pakistan ever since he became foreign
minister in the Morarji Desai Government in the late seventies.
After
the Lahore bus peace overtures failed to move forward, another initiative was
the historic Agra summit with General Pervez Musharraf in 2001 but that too made
little headway. A
bachelor and a poet of some repute, Vajpayee was born on December 25, 1924 at
Gwalior, Madhya Pradesh to Krishna Bihari Vajpayee and Krishna Devi, a
high-caste Brahmin family. With
his Parliamentary career spanning over five decades, Vajpayee was first elected
to Lok Sabha in 1957 on Bhartiya Jan Sangh ticket.
Since
its inception, 43 people including former Prime Ministers Jawaharlal Nehru, Lal
Bhadur Shastri, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi besides singing legend Lata
Mangeshkar and the batting mastreo have received the prestigious award. The
President will also confer the Bharat Ratna on Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya
(posthumously) on March 30, 2015 at Rashtrapati Bhavan along with the Civil
Investiture Ceremony for the Padma Awards, it said.(Source- www.newsroompost.com)
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