Lal Krishna 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 organisation. He was also the longest serving Minister of Home Affairs serving from 1998 to 2004. He was also the longest serving Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha. He was the leader 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. Advani joined the RSS in 1941 at the age of fourteen and worked as a pracharak Rajasthan. In 1951, Advani became a member of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh founded by Syama Prasad Mookerjee and performed various roles including incharge of parliamentary affairs, general secretary and president of the Delhi unit. 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. In 1970, Advani became a member of the Rajya Sabha for the first time and would go on to serve four terms till 1989. He became the president of Jan Sangh in 1973 and Jana Sangh merged into the Janata Party before the 1977 general election. Following 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 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 six terms. He has served as leader of opposition in both the houses. He was the minister of home affairs from 1998 to 2004 and deputy prime minister from 2002 to 2004. He served in the Indian parliament till 2014 and is credited for rise of BJP as a major political party. In

2015, he was awarded the Padma Vibhushan, India's second highest civilian honour.