Atal Bihari Vajpayee

Born in 1924, Vajpayee came up through the RSS as a full-time pracharak and helped found the Bharatiya Jana Sangh in the 1950s, serving as its president from 1968 to 1972. When the BJS merged into the Janata Party, he became external affairs minister under Morarji Desai in 1977, resigned in 1979, then co-founded the BJP in 1980 as its first president. He served as prime minister for two weeks in 1996, then returned in 1998 for a full six-year term that opened with the Pokhran-II nuclear tests and a bus ride to Lahore to meet Nawaz Sharif. The 1999 Kargil War followed, then the 2001 Parliament attack and Operation Parakram, then the 2002 Gujarat riots after the Godhra train burning - but his 2004 defeat turned more on rural distress and the misjudged India Shining campaign than any single crisis. He retired in 2009, received the Bharat Ratna in 2015, and died in 2018, leaving tunnels and bridges named in his wake.