Atal Bihari Vajpayee, one of the most venerated leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), became the tenth prime minister of India in 1996. However, his first term was destined to last a mere thirteen days. Subsequently, in May 1998, he was instrumental in forming a National Democratic Alliance (NDA) by bringing together several regional parties that supported the BJP from outside. The NDA fought the general elections the same year and Vajpayee returned as prime minister. But, yet again, within a year, the government collapsed when an ally based in Tamil Nadu withdrew its support. Nonetheless, with the support of a few more regional parties, the NDA proceeded to win the 1999 elections with a comfortable majority and finally completed its term, which ended in 2004. Vajpayee thus became the first prime minister from outside the Indian National Congress to serve a full five-year term.

The NDA government under Vajpayee witnessed many crises after it came to power on 13 October 1999. Within a little over two months, on 24 December 1999, Indian Airlines flight IC 814 from Kathmandu to New Delhi was hijacked by five Al-Qaeda-linked terrorists and flown to Kandahar in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. The hijackers demanded the release of dangerous terrorists as ransom. Terror masterminds such as Maulana Masood Azhar, Omar Saeed Sheikh and Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar, all held in Indian prisons, were named. The week-long stand-off between the hijackers and the Government of India concluded on the last day of the millennium when the government wilted under media and public pressure and acquiesced to the hijackers’ demands. The then external affairs minister, Jaswant Singh, rather shamefacedly, flew to Kandahar with the three terrorists and handed them over to the hijackers. The IC 814 passengers were released and were flown home on 31 December 1999. In this terror episode there was one tragic fatality. Rupin Katyal, a twenty-five-year-old honeymooner, succumbed to injuries inflicted on him by the hijackers at the Amritsar airport, where the plane had stopped for refuelling.

To be continued ……………..