LK Advani: Charioteer and BJP’s tallest veteran leader who scripted the party’s rise

Lal Krishna Advani, popularly known as LK Advani, is widely known as one of the tallest leaders of the BJP who scripted the party’s rise from oblivion to prominence. It was after his Rath Yatra in the 1990s that the BJP was catapulted into national politics.

Through the years LK Advani served as the President of the BJP for the longest period since its inception in 1980.

Capping a parliamentary career of nearly three decades, LK Advani was, first, the Home Minister and, later, the Deputy Prime Minister in the Cabinet of Atal Bihari Vajpayee (1999-2004).

LK Advani, who was born on November 8, 1927 in Karachi, British India (now in Pakistan) came to India due to the Partition.

After graduating from the DG National College in Hyderabad, he studied law at the Government Law College in Mumbai and he joined the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and took charge of its activities in Rajasthan in 1947.

When Syama Prasad Mookerjee founded the political wing of the RSS, the Bharatiya Jana Sangh (BJS) in 1951, LK Advani became the Secretary of the Rajasthan unit and remained so until 1970.

From 1960-1967, he was also with the Organiser, a political journal of the Jana Sangh where he worked as Assistant Editor.

After 1970 he moved closer to the centre of all political action in the country and joined the Delhi unit of the party.

In 1970 he became a member of the Rajya Sabha and held the seat till 1989.

He was elected President of the BJS and continued at the helm until 1977 after which he resigned from the post after his appointment as the Information and Broadcasting Minister in the coalition Janata Party.

During his ministerial tenure, he abolished Press censorship, repealed all anti-Press legislation enacted during the Emergency, and institutionalised reforms to safeguard the freedom of the media.

Following the collapse of the Moraji Desai government and subsequent breakdown of the BJS, a large number of the party’s members — led by LK Advani and Atal Bihari Vajpayee — formed a new political party, the BJP, in 1980.

To popularise the party and publicise its agenda, LK Advani undertook a series of rath yatras across India in the 1990s. He was elected to the Lok Sabha in 1998, representing Gandhinagar, Gujarat.

Appointed as the Union Home Minister twice in the BJP-led coalition government, LK Advani was named Deputy Prime Minister in 2002. Following his party’s defeat in the general elections of 2004, he became the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha.

LK Advani ran as his party’s prime ministerial candidate in the 2009 general election and resigned his Cabinet position following the party’s defeat.

On February 3, 2024, the Prime Minister Narendra Modi government announced that LK Advani would be conferred the prestigious Bharat Ratna award.