Through the last-pole bugle sound, 21 gun salutes and Vedic mantra chants at Smruti Sthal, on the Jamuna River bank daughter Namita Bhaacharya lit the funeral pyre.And the earthly body of Atal Bihari Vajpayee assimilated in the panch bhoot.
President Ramnath Kovind, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Vice President Venkiah Naidu, along with Chief Ministers of several states, Ministers of Modi Cabinet, and hundreds inside the premises thousands outside the it bid teary farewell to Vajpayee. Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Congress President Rahul Gandhi, Mulayam Singh of SP had also turned up to the occasion. Several foreign dignitaries, including Bhutan King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck, Bangladesh foreign minister Abul Hassan Mahmood Ali, Pakistan’s law minister Ali Zafar and former Afghan President Hamid Karzai, were present there.
The funeral procession of the late Prime Minister decked in the tri-color set for the Smruti Sthal at about 1.30 PM from the BJP head quarters. The four -kilometer journey, marked by the prime Minister’s walking alongside the hearse with his party President Amit Shaha, Cabinet colegues and Chief Ministers was just a magnetising force attracting people from all spectra towards it. It was like an emotionally overwhelmed human sea making the march.
Atal Bihari Vajpayee who breathed his last on Aug 16, after a prolonged illness had retired from politics for a decade now and was confined to his home yet thousands of people thronged to be part of the cortege was the indication of his lasting love and respect in the heart of the people of India.
. “People came from all parts of India, from all sections of society pay tributes to an extraordinary personality who made an extraordinary contribution to the nation. India salutes you, Atal Ji!,” tweeted PM Modi.
On 16 August, the AIIMS bulletin was out at 5.35 for the anxiously waiting nation all through the day reading, “it is with profound grief we inform about the sad demise of the former Prime Minister of India at 5.05pm on 16.08.2018.”
Vajpayee who was undergoing treatment in the AIIMS since June this year was in stable condition for the 9 weeks till his condition deteriorated over the last 36 hours. He was put on life support system but “despite best effort we lost him.” said the medical statement.
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