Former Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee has died at the age of 93 following a prolonged illness, according to a hospital statement.
A Hindu nationalist from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Vajpayee had been hospitalised since June with a kidney infection and chest congestion.
Reports emerged on Thursday morning that Vajpayee was in a critical condition after top Indian politicians visited him in New Dehli’s All India Institute of Medical Science.
Vajpayee served as India’s prime minister three times: for 13 days in 1996, 11 months in 1998 to 1999 and then from 1999 to 2004.
He also served decades in parliament, and was a foreign minister from 1977 to 1980.
He believed that India should enshrine Hindu culture, but he opposed discrimination against other religions.
Vajpayee was one of the few BJP leaders to express anguish when hundreds of Muslims were killed in 2002 during religious riots in the western state of Gujarat, governed at the time by India’s current Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
He called the 1992 destruction of a 16th-century mosque on a disputed site by Hindu fanatics India’s darkest hour.
Commenting on the news of his death, Modi said Vajpayee’s stewardship had put India on a fast track to growth.
“It was Atal Ji’s exemplary leadership that set the foundations for a strong, prosperous and inclusive India in the 21st century,” Modi said in a tweet.
It was Atal Ji’s exemplary leadership that set the foundations for a strong, prosperous and inclusive India in the 21st century. His futuristic policies across various sectors touched the lives of each and every citizen of India.
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) August 16, 2018
Vajpayee was a key figure in the development of India’s nuclear programme and gave the go-ahead for underground nuclear tests in 1998, believing nuclear weapons would be a deterrent against China and Pakistan.
Pakistan responded to those tests with six of its own, launching both countries on a race to amass the weapons.
But a year later, Vajpayee rode on the first bus to begin a new service from Delhi to the Pakistani city of Lahore in a rare trip by an Indian prime minister to mend ties with the neighbour.
He retired from politics in 2005, four years before suffering a stroke that made him retreat from public view.
