India’s top leaders and politicians are visiting the New Delhi hospital where doctors say former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee is in critical condition after a prolonged illness.
Ninety-three-year-old Vajpayee has been hospitalized for more than two months after being admitted for treatment of a kidney infection and chest congestion. He suffered a stroke in 2009.
Coverage of Indian on Globalnews.ca:
Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited him Wednesday night and Vice-President Venkiah Naidu on Thursday.
Vajpayee, a Hindu nationalist from the Bharatiya Janata Party, ordered nuclear weapons tests in 1988 that stoked fears of atomic war with rival Pakistan.
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But he later launched a groundbreaking peace process with Islamabad.
He served three times as India’s prime minister; for 13 days in 1996, for 11 months from 1998 to 1999, and then from 1998 to 2004.