PM to wish Vajpayee on birthday tomorrow on return from visit

Agra, Dec 24:The Indian Railways will launch a new train on Thursday to commemorate former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s birthday. “We salute this great personality who provided exceptional leadership to India at a crucial time”, he said.

On his way back to New Delhi from Kabul, Modi made a sudden stopover in Lahore where he met his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif and pledged to pursue the peace process.

After landing in Delhi this evening, Prime Minister Modi will head straight to Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s residence to personally wish him. “This is his speciality” he said.

Prime Minister Modi was on a two-day visit to Russian Federation.

In the latter two stints, he headed the National Democratic Alliance governments led by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), of which he is the founder.

“Vajpayeeji has always been a source of inspiration to me”.

“May he continue to live a long and healthy life”, the chief minister said on twitter. The high point, of course, was when he became Prime Minister in 1998. The internationally renowned musician began the night with a rendition of Mr Vajpayee’s poem and went to sing some popular Bollywood numbers, sung by him over the years.

Central ministers Piyush Goyal, Ravishankar Prasad and Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi also greeted Vajpayee. Vajpayee was one amongst the founder members of erstwhile Bharatiya Jana Sangh. He was also theMinister of External Affairs in the cabinet of Morarji Desai.