L. K. Advani

Lal Krishna Advani (born 8 November 1927) is an Indian politician who served as the 7th Deputy Prime Minister of India from 2002 to 2004.

He is one of the co-founders of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and a member of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a right-wing Hindu nationalist volunteer organization.

Lal Krishna Advani was born on 8 November 1927 in Karachi, British India in a Sindhi Hindu Brahmin family to Kishanchand D. Advani and Gyani Devi.

He was educated at St. Patrick's High School, Karachi, and at D.G. National College, Hyderabad, Sindh.

His family migrated to India during partition of India and settled in Bombay, where he graduated in Law from the Government Law College of the Bombay University.

Advani joined the RSS in 1941 at the age of fourteen and worked as a pracharak Rajasthan.

Advani joined the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) in 1941 at the age of fourteen.

He became a pracharak (full-time worker) conducting shakhas and became the secretary of the Karachi unit in 1947.

In 1951, Advani became a member of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh founded by Syama Prasad Mookerjee and performed various roles including in charge of parliamentary affairs, general secretary, and president of the Delhi unit.

Advani became a member of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh (BJS), a political party founded in 1951 by Syama Prasad Mookerjee in collaboration with the RSS.

He was appointed as the secretary to S. S. Bhandari, then general secretary of the Jana Sangh in Rajasthan.

After the partition of India, Advani was a pracharak in Rajasthan working across Alwar, Bharatpur, Kota, Bundi and Jhalawar districts until 1952.

In 1957, he moved to Delhi and became the general secretary and later, president of the Delhi unit of the Jana Sangh.

Advani married Kamla Advani in February 1965 and they have a son Jayant and a daughter Pratibha.

Pratibha is a television producer and also supports her father in his political activities.

From 1966 to 1967 he served as the leader of BJS in the Delhi Metropolitan Council (DMC).

He also assisted K. R. Malkani with the publication of Organiser, the weekly newsletter of the RSS and became a member of its national executive in 1966.

In 1967, he was elected as the chairman of the First Delhi metropolitan council and served till 1970 while becoming a member of the RSS national executive.

After the 1967 Delhi Metropolitan Council election, he was elected as the chairman of the council and served till 1970.

In 1970, Advani became a member of the Rajya Sabha for the first time and would go on to serve four terms till 1989.

In 1970, Advani became a member of the Rajya Sabha from Delhi for the six-year tenure.

He became the president of Jan Sangh in 1973 and Jana Sangh merged into the Janata Party before the 1977 general election.

Following the Janata party's victory in the elections, Advani became the union minister for Information and Broadcasting and leader of the house in Rajya Sabha.

In 1973, he was elected as the president of BJS at the Kanpur session of the party working committee meeting.

Advani was relected to the Rajya Sabha from Gujarat in 1976 for the second time.

After the imposition of Emergency and crack down on opposition parties by then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, BJS and other opposition parties merged to form the Janata Party.

In 1980, he was one of the founding members of the BJP along with Atal Bihari Vajpayee and served as the president of the party three times.

He was elected to the Lok Sabha for the first time in 1989 where he served seven terms.

Following the same, he was one of the chief proponents of the movement to build a temple over the disputed Ram Janmabhoomi site in Ayodhya and the subsequent rise of Hindutva politics in the late 1990s.

He has served as leader of opposition in both the houses.

In 1992, he was alleged to have been part of the Demolition of the Babri Masjid, but was acquitted by the courts due to lack of evidence.

He is the longest serving Minister of Home Affairs serving from 1998 to 2004.

He is also the longest serving Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha.

He was the minister of home affairs from 1998 to 2004 and deputy prime minister from 2002 to 2004.

He was the prime ministerial candidate of the BJP during the 2009 general election.

Advani was born in Karachi and migrated to India during the Partition of India and settled down in Bombay where he completed his college education.

In 2015, he was awarded the Padma Vibhushan, India's second highest civilian honour and in 2024, he was conferred with Bharat Ratna, India's highest civilian honour.

His wife died on 6 April 2016 due to old age.

Advani resides in Delhi.

He served in the Indian parliament until 2019 and is credited for rise of BJP as a major political party.