This is not the first time the Narendra Modi government has paid homage to the departed leader. Even before the death of Atal Bihari Vajpayee, quite a few central schemes were named after him. On December 24 last year, a commemorative coin of Rs 100 was dedicated to the memory of the former Prime Minister of India.
New Delhi: On Tuesday, a life-size portrait of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee was unveiled at the Central Hall of the Parliament House by President Ram Nath Kovind in the presence of Vice President Venkaiah Naidu and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Among former Prime Ministers - Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, Lal Bahadur Shastri, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi, who have been honoured in such a manner, Vajpayee, who passed away in 2018, joined the pantheon.
Here is the portrait of Atal Bihari Vajpayee in the Central Hall of Parliament:
A portrait of unveiled at the Central Hall of by Hon'ble . pic.twitter.com/zlkasMF2eW
— Doordarshan National (@DDNational)Atal Bihari Vajpayee was the Prime Minister thrice - first in 1996 for 13 days, then from 1998 to 1999 for 13 months, and then from 1999 to 2004. The towering BJP leader was born on December 25, 1924, in Gwalior in Madhya Pradesh and after a prolonged illness, passed away on August 16, 2018. On December 18, the decision to install the portrait of the Bharat Ratna was taken at a meeting of Parliament's Portrait Committee which was chaired by Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan.
Deputy Speaker M. Thambi Durai, Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge, BJD's B Mahtab, TMC's Sudip Bandyopadhyay, TRS' Jithendra Reddy, Shiv Sena's Anant Geete and BJP's Satyanarayan Jatia had attended the meeting and took the decision unanimously.
In memory of the late leader, Prime Minister Modi had released a commemorative coin on the eve of Vajpayee's 94th birthday on December 24, 2018. Sumitra Mahajan and some ministers were present for the ceremony. While the Emblem of India is inscribed on one side of the commemorative coin, the other side has Vajpayee's picture with his name inscribed in Devanagari and Roman languages.
On the occasion, PM Modi had said that Vajpayee had never compromised on the party's ideology of supreme democracy. Modi also mentioned that Vajpayee was unlike those leaders for whom power is oxygen.
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