Ten Unknown Facts About 'Bharat Ratna' Atal Bihari Vajpayee

New Delhi: Former Prime Minister and BJP veteran Atal Bihari Vajpayee passed away at AIIMS due to prolonged illness on Thursday. The leader was admitted at the premier All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) on June 11 with a kidney tract infection, urinary tract infection, low urine output and chest congestion. The veteran BJP leader was diabetic and had one functional kidney. He had suffered a stroke in 2009 that weakened his cognitive abilities. Subsequently, he had developed dementia.

Ten Unknown Facts About Former PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee

AFP PHOTO / TEKEE TANWAR/ FILE

1. Born in Gwalior in Madhya Pradesh, he obtained an MA in political science from Laxmibhai College in Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh.
2. His father, Krishna Bihari Vajpayee, was a poet and a schoolmaster and Atal Bihari Vajpayee also got known for his poetry which was marked by nationalistic fervour and human values.
3. He first experienced politics with the Quit India Movement, during the struggle for Independence.
4. He also joined the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) as a Swayamsevak in 1939.
5. It is said that his oratorical skills so impressed Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru that he predicted that Vajpayee would someday become India's Prime Minister.
6. His oratorical and organizational skills later made him the face of the Jana Sangh.
7. In 1968, Vajpayee succeeded Deendayal Upadhyaya at the head of the Jan Sangh. He and his party supported the JP movement (Jayaprakash Narayan) and Vajpayee was jailed during the Emergency (1975–1977).
8. He served as Prime Minister for a short stint in 1996. Later on March 19, 1998, he took charge as Prime Minister of India and again on October 13, 1999, for the second consecutive term as the head of a new coalition government.
9. The veteran parliamentarian who was there for over four decades was an elected to the Lok Sabha (the lower house of Parliament of India) ten times, and twice to the Rajya Sabha (upper house).
10. He was conferred with Bharat Ratna award, India's highest civilian honour, in 2014.