Prime Minister Narendra Modi, President Droupadi Murmu, Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar, Home Minister Amit Shah and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh paid floral tribute to former PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee on his death anniversary at 'Sadaiv Atal' memorial, New Delhi on Wednesday.
Before visiting the memorial, the PM in a post on X - formerly known as Twitter, said India greatly benefitted from Vajpayee's leadership.
"I join the 140 crore people of India in paying homage to the remarkable Atal Ji on his Punya Tithi. India benefitted greatly from his leadership. He played a pivotal role in boosting our nation's progress and in taking it to the 21st century in a wide range of sectors," read PM's post.
Home Minister Amit Shah also remembered the BJP stalwart.
The first-ever prime minister from the saffron party, Vajpayee is credited with popularising the party beyond its base and running a coalition government successfully for six years, during which he pushed reforms and boosted infrastructure. Vajpayee was one of the co-founders of BJP. He died in 2018 at the age of 93. Vajpayee served three terms as the 10th Prime Minister of India. The first for a term of 13 days in 1996, then for a period of 13 months from 1998 to 1999. The third term was a full tenure from 1999 to 2004.
(With PTI inputs)
