New Delhi: The government yesterday named former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee (pictured) and late freedom fighter-educationist Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya for India’s highest civilian honour, the Bharat Ratna.
A Rashtrapati Bhavan communique said: “The president has been pleased to award Bharat Ratna to Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya (posthumously) and to Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee.”
The announcement comes a day ahead of Vajpayee’s 90th birthday and coincidentally Malaviya’s 153rd birth anniversary on Christmas. The Narendra Modi government is observing December 25 as Good Governance Day. Prime Minister Narendra Modi hailed the announcement. The Congress also welcomed it.
“Bharat Ratna being conferred on Madan Mohan Malaviya and Atal Bihari Vajpayee is a matter of great delight. The country’s highest honour to these illustrious stalwarts is a fitting recognition of their service to the nation,” the prime minister said in a statement.
The honour for Gwalior-born Vajpayee, who was the country’s prime minister first in 1996 and then again from 1998 to 2004, came after years of demands from people across party affiliations and the public at large.
The announcement came in the first year of the Modi government.
Modi, during his Lok Sabha campaign, had promised Bharat Ratna for Malviya, founder of the Banaras Hindu University.
Bharatiya Janata Party leaders, including party veteran LK Advani, had been demanding Bharat Ratna for Vajpayee for several years. Advani had even written about the matter to then prime minister Manmohan Singh.
Vajpayee will be the seventh prime minister to receive the award, after Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi, Morarji Desai, Lal Bahadur Shastri and Gulzarilal Nanda.
The Congress welcomed the announcement. Party general secretary Ajay Maken tweeted a congratulatory message after the announcement was made.
The BJP parliamentary board passed a resolution expressing its “deep sense of gratitude” towards the government “for its historic decision” on the conferment.
Union ministers Sushma Swaraj, Nitin Gadkari and Jaitley met Vajpayee at his residence after the government announcement. Vajpayee has not been keeping well for the past few years.
Advani said that among all the 14 prime ministers since independence, Vajpayee was one with a “blemishless tenure”.
Vajpayee had re-started the Bharatiya Jan Sangh as the Bharatiya Janata Party in 1980 and was the first head of government from outside the Congress to serve a full five-year term.
He served the Lok Sabha, the lower house of parliament, for 10 terms that began in 1957 and concluded in 2009.
An orator par excellence, Vajpayee earned much fame as India’s external affairs minister in Prime Minister Morarji Desai’s government, during which he delivered a widely acclaimed speech to the United Nations General Assembly in Hindi.
The Allahabad-born Malaviya was the president of the Indian National Congress for two terms and was also among the first leaders of the right-wing Hindu Mahasabha.
Besides being a freedom fighter and politician, he was also an eminent educationist.
The Banaras Hindu University was founded by him in 1916. He died a year before India’s independence.IANS
