Atal Bihari Vajpayee

From being one of the earliest members of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh, Vajpayee blossomed into a leading opposition MP by the late 1960s, went on to become External Affairs Minister in the short-lived Janata government and, finally in 1999, to head the first non-Congress government to complete a full term in office. That it was a coalition government made the feat all the more remarkable and testifies to the fact that though wedded to a right-wing political ideology, Vajpayee did not believe in the