CM Fadnavis shares PM Modi's tribute to L.K. Advani on centenary eve
Synopsis
Key Takeaways
As L.K. Advani stands on the threshold of his hundredth year, Maharashtra's political class is pausing to take stock of a life that shaped modern India's right-of-centre politics more than almost any other. Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Sunday, 8 November 2026, shared a special article authored by Prime Minister Narendra Modi that traces Advani's decades-long journey in public life — urging followers to read it closely.
Posting in Marathi, Fadnavis described Advani as 'ज्येष्ठ नेतृत्व' — 'senior leadership' — saluting his long record of national service, ideological conviction, and contribution to nation-building. 'His inspiring life journey and unparalleled contribution are a source of perennial inspiration for new generations,' Fadnavis wrote, before pointing readers to PM Modi's piece.Nine decades of a nation-builder's footprint
Lal Krishna Advani, born 8 November 1927 in Karachi (now Pakistan), has spent virtually his entire adult life inside the machinery of Indian right-wing politics — from the RSS pracharaks of the 1940s, through the Jan Sangh, through the founding of the Bharatiya Janata Party in 1980, to two stints as Home Minister and a term as Deputy Prime Minister under Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Few figures in independent India's political history can claim a comparable arc. In 2024, the government conferred the Bharat Ratna — India's highest civilian honour — on Advani, formally recognising a career that helped transform a fringe ideological formation into India's dominant national party. The award drew an emotional response across the political spectrum, underscoring how thoroughly Advani's legacy had been woven into the institutional fabric of Indian democracy.Modi's article and the BJP's centenary narrative
The PM's article, flagged by Fadnavis, arrives as the BJP moves into what insiders call a 'centenary window' — the months leading to Advani's 100th birthday in November 2027. The party has a long-established practice of using milestone tributes to anchor its present leadership to its foundational figures, drawing an unbroken ideological line from the Jan Sangh era to today. Fadnavis's decision to amplify the piece on a Sunday morning — tagging both #Maharashtra and #HappyBirthdayLKAdvani — signals that the commemoration is being rolled out as a coordinated, party-wide moment rather than a Delhi-only exercise. With Maharashtra's own BJP base deeply steeped in the Advani political mythology, the Chief Minister's endorsement carries local resonance well beyond a routine retweet. For a generation of BJP workers who cut their political teeth on Advani's 1990 Rath Yatra and the subsequent Ram Janmabhoomi movement, this approaching centenary is not merely ceremonial. It is an occasion to reconnect the party's current electoral dominance with the ideological groundwork laid over five difficult decades.As Advani approaches a century, the party he built into a national force is ensuring that the man, the mission, and the movement remain inseparable in public memory.