India
Former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee was today admitted to New Delhi’s All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) for what doctors described as a routine check-up and investigations.
He was hospitalised on the advice of doctors. At AIIMS, he will be under the supervision of Dr Randeep Guleria, a pulmonologist and currently director at AIIMS. Dr Guleria has served as personal physician to Vajpayee for over three decades.
Vajpayee, 93, was the first head of government from outside the Congress party to serve a full five-year term, as a leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party. He is also a recipient of India’s highest civilian honour, the Bharat Ratna, which was conferred on him in 2015. Born in 1924, Vajpayee entered politics during the Quit India movement in 1942. He was also the first external affairs minister to deliver a speech in the UN Assembly in Hindi. Vajpayee was elected to Lok Sabha from Lucknow in 1991, 1996, 1998, 1999 and 2004.
