A sad goodbay
Leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party, currently in the Government, led the nuclear race against Pakistan and then start the peace process and end up being the friendly face of Hindu nationalism. He was a source of inspiration for the country's current party leader and prime minister, Narendra Modi, who has described his death as "irreparable loss".
Former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who ordered the first nuclear tests to make India a war power and subsequently traveled by bus to neighboring Pakistan in a historic diplomatic gesture, has died at the age of 93 in New Delhi. His death was announced on Thursday at the All India Institute Hospital in the capital, where the three times maximum leader of the Asian country was being treated for more than two months of a kidney infection and a congestion in the chest.
Vajpayee captained the Hindu nationalism of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for decades and was a source of inspiration for the country's current party leader and prime minister, Narendra Modi, who has described his death as "irreparable loss". In a message on Twitter, the Indian chief executive expressed his admiration and respect for his predecessor: "It was the leadership of Atal that laid the foundations for a strong, prosperous and inclusive India in the 21st century. and perseverance built BJP brick by brick.
"Journalist and poet turned politician, Vajpayee was one of the few opposition legislators within Parliament when the first leader of independent India, Jawaharlal Nehru, still ruled the country. Despite their differences and contrary to the current national political discourse, admiration for the latter was present in the celebrated oratory of Vajpayee; which is why he gained appreciation as a man of consensus on the part of adversaries. "Millions loved and respected him. Today India lost one of its great children, "Rahul Gandhi, leader of the opposition Congress Party, wrote on Twitter on Thursday.
After a fleeting step as leader of the Executive in 1996, Vajpayee was the first Indian politician to govern the country without belonging to the Congress Party, thanks to a coalition led by the BJP, between 1998 and 2004. At the beginning of his first term, India began its nuclear tests to deter neighbors China and Pakistan. The similar response of the latter, however, plunged both countries into a frantic nuclear race and forever altered security in South Asia. His bus trip from Delhi to Lahore to meet the then Pakistani Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif, in 1999 was a significant gesture of peace that was cut short by the border conflict in the disputed region of Kashmir, still in force today.
