L. K. Advani

Bharat Ratna L. K. Advani
Advani in 2022
7th Deputy Prime Minister of India
In office 29 June 2002 – 22 May 2004
Prime Minister	Atal Bihari Vajpayee
Preceded by	Devi Lal
Succeeded by	Vacant
21st Union Minister of Home Affairs
In office 19 March 1998 – 22 May 2004
Prime Minister	Atal Bihari Vajpayee
Preceded by	Indrajit Gupta
Succeeded by	Shivraj Patil
16th Union Minister of Coal and Mines
In office 1 July 2002 – 26 August 2002
Prime Minister	Atal Bihari Vajpayee
Preceded by	Atal Bihari Vajpayee
Succeeded by	Uma Bharati
17th Union Minister of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions
In office 29 January 2003 – 21 May 2004
Prime Minister	Atal Bihari Vajpayee
Preceded by	Atal Bihari Vajpayee
Succeeded by	Manmohan Singh
6th Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha
In office May 2004 – December 2009
Prime Minister	Manmohan Singh
Preceded by	Sonia Gandhi
Succeeded by	Sushma Swaraj
In office 24 December 1990 – 26 July 1993
Prime Minister	Vishwanath Pratap Singh P. V. Narasimha Rao
Preceded by	Rajiv Gandhi
Succeeded by	Atal Bihari Vajpayee
Member of Parliament, Lok Sabha
In office 28 February 1998 – 23 May 2019
Preceded by	Vijay Patel
Succeeded by	Amit Shah
Constituency	Gandhinagar, Gujarat
In office 26 November 1989 – 7 May 1996
Preceded by	Krishna Chandra Pant
Succeeded by	Rajesh Khanna
Constituency	New Delhi, Delhi
2nd President of the Bharatiya Janata Party
In office 2004–2005
Preceded by	Venkaiah Naidu
Succeeded by	Rajnath Singh
In office 1993–1998
Preceded by	Murli Manohar Joshi
Succeeded by	Kushabhau Thakre
In office 1986–1991
Preceded by	Atal Bihari Vajpayee
Succeeded by	Murli Manohar Joshi
5th Leader of the Opposition in Rajya Sabha
In office 21 January 1980 – 7 April 1980
Vice President	Mohammad Hidayatullah
Preceded by	Kamalapati Tripathi
Succeeded by	P. Shiv Shankar
11th Union Minister of Information & Broadcasting
In office 24 March 1977 – 28 July 1979
Prime Minister	Morarji Desai
Preceded by	Vidya Charan Shukla
Succeeded by	Purushottam Kaushik
Member of Parliament, Rajya Sabha
In office 3 April 1988 – 30 November 1989
Preceded by	Hans Raj Bhardwaj
Succeeded by	Jinendra Kumar Jain
Constituency	Madhya Pradesh
In office 3 April 1982 – 2 April 1988
Preceded by	Sawai Singh Sisodiya
Succeeded by	Radhakishan Malviya
Constituency	Madhya Pradesh
In office 3 April 1976 – 2 April 1982
Preceded by	Devdatt Kumar Kikabhai Patel
Succeeded by	Kumud Ben Joshi
Constituency	Gujarat
Personal details
Born	Lal Krishna Advani (1927-11-08) 8 November 1927 (age 97) Karachi, Bombay Presidency, British India (present–day Sindh, Pakistan)
Political party	Bharatiya Janata Party (1980–present)
Other political affiliations	Janata Party (1977–1980)[1] Bharatiya Jana Sangh (1951–1977)
Spouse	Kamla Advani ​ ​ (m. 1965; died 2016)​
Children	Pratibha Advani (daughter) Jayant Advani (son)
Awards	Bharat Ratna Padma Vibhushan
Signature

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. 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 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. Advani joined the RSS in 1941 at the age of fourteen and worked as a pracharak in Rajasthan. 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. 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 Jana 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 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. 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. 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. 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 until 2019 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 and in 2024, he was conferred with Bharat Ratna, India's highest civilian honour.^[2]