New Delhi: Former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee passed away on Thursday after being on life support systems for over two days.
The 93-year-old Bharatiya Janata Party leader breathed his last at 5:05PM, said a notification from AIIMS. He 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.
People from all walks of life prayed for his health, while special prayers were held in his ‘karam bhoomi’ Lucknow after the news spread that the veteran leader’s health has deteriorated.
Vajpayee, a diabetic, has only one functional kidney. He had suffered a stroke in 2009 that weakened his cognitive abilities. Subsequently, he developed dementia.
The formal prime minister was born on December 25, 1924, in a middle-class Brahmin family of Shri Krishna Bihari Vajpayee and Smt. Krishna Devi at Gwalior in Madhya Pradesh.
He did his schooling at the Saraswati Gwalior’s Shishu Mandir and graduation in Hindi, Sanskrit & English from the Victoria (now Laxmi Bai) College. He completed MA (Political Science) from the DAV College in UP’s Kanpur.
Vajpayee was India’s Prime Minister from May 16-31 in 1996; from 1998 to 1999 for a period of 13 months, and a full five-year term from October 13, 1999 to May 13, 2004.
In December 2005, he retired from politics. Vajpayee was conferred with Bharat Ratna, the country’s highest civilian award, by President Pranab Mukherjee in 2015. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had visited AIIMS to see the former Prime Minister twice within 24 hours.