Veteran BJP leader LK Advani turns 98, PM Modi extends wishes

As LK Advani, the architect of the Ram Janmabhoomi movement, turned 98 on Saturday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi paid him a visit to personally greet him.

Advani was conferred with India’s highest civilian honour, the Bharat Ratna, on February 3, 2024.

That was close on the heels of the inauguration of Ram Mandir in Ayodhya.

Advani, a member of the BJP’s Marg Darshak Mandal, is credited with the electoral and political rise of the BJP between the 1980s and the 1990s.

As BJP national president at the time, Advani pioneered the Ram Janmabhoomi Movement in the 1990s after the party adopted a resolution on the matter for the first time at the meeting of its National Executive in Palampur (Himachal Pradesh) on June 9-11, 1989.

In the resolution, the BJP had endorsed the demand for handing over Shri Ram Janmabhoomi to Hindus for the construction of a Ram Temple there.

The result of the Ram Janmabhoomi movement paid off.

The BJP secured 85 Lok Sabha seats in the 1989 General Election, 120 in 1991, 161 in 1996 and 182 in 1999, as against two in 1984.

The BJP’s rise coincided with Congress’s fall. The party was reduced from a high of 414 LS seats in 1984 to just 114 in 1999.

Since the formation of Bharatiya Janata Party in 1980, Advani remained on the post of party president for the longest period.

After playing a long innings of three decades as an MP, Advani first became the Home Minister and later became Deputy Prime Minister in PM Atal’s Cabinet (1999-2004).

Advani hung his boots in 2019, bowing out of the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.