PM Modi to unveil 25-feet statue of Atal Bihari Vajpayee in Lucknow on December 25

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will unveil a 25-feet bronze statue of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee at Lucknow's iconic Lok Bhawan on Wednesday. The event coincides with the birth anniversary of Vajpayee, one of the founders of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Sources told Zee Media that all preparations for the event has been completed and security officers have already inspected the area to ensure foolproof security before the arrival of PM Modi at the venue. It is learnt that the venue has also been sanitised with the help of a sniffer dog and bomb detectors.

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and Governor Anandi Ben Patel will also accompany PM Modi during the event. Apart from this, the prime minister is also scheduled to lay the foundation stone of the Atal Bihari Vajpayee Medical University in the state. Notably, Uttar Pradesh government has already announced its decision to transfer 50 acres of land for this purpose.

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Vajpayee - who was also called a 'politician with a difference' - was the Prime Minister of India for a brief period in 1996, and then from 1998 to 2004. He was conferred India's highest civilian honour Bharat Ratna by the then President Pranab Mukherjee in 2015. His birthday on December 25 is marked as Good Governance Day. He slowly withdrew from public life due to his ill health and died on August 16, 2018, due to age-related illness.

Vajpayee was born on December 25, 1924 in Gwalior, Madhya Pradesh. He joined politics at the age of 18 when Quit India Movement was launched in 1942. Between 1957 and 2009, he was elected to Parliament 10 times, and as Minister for External Affairs in the Janata Party government, he showed his mettle as an orator and administrator par excellence. After becoming prime minister, he had to face several hurdles, but he managed to implement several development programmes that strengthened the country's economy.