Accordingly Atal Bihari Vajpayee is a statesman and pragmatist, orator and poet, a man of peace and conviction. Meanwhile Atal Bihari Vajpayee was a towering nationalist who softened the often sharp edge of his party's politics with a gentle sophistry of words, earning him the sobriquet "ajaat shatru" or the man with no enemies. He is the first prime minister from a non-Congress party to complete a full term in office and Vajpayee began shakily his first stint as prime minister in 1996 lasted only 13 days when his unlikely coalition government failed to get support from other parties.
Furthermore the BJP led coalition government came back to power in 1998, and this time Vajpayee stayed in office for 13 months before losing a no-confidence motion by one vote. He is the Member of Parliament, foreign minister, opposition leader and finally a much loved leader of the nation. Moreover like many of his generation, Vajpayee who died yesterday at age 93 came into politics as an 18 year old during the Independence movement in 1942 when the Quit India movement was going on.
To the surprise of all, he is a lifelong bachelor, Vajpayee was first elected to Lok Sabha in 1957 from Balrampur in Uttar Pradesh in India's second general elections. Moreover his maiden speech in Parliament so impressed his peers and colleagues that the then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru introduced Vajpayee to a visiting foreign dignitary thus "This young man one day will become the country's prime minister and also remained a member of Parliament for 47 years elected 10 times to the Lok Sabha and twice to Rajya Sabha”.
