CM Himanta greets Advani as he enters his 100th year
Synopsis
Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma greeted BJP founding father and former Deputy PM Lal Krishna Advani as he enters his 100th year, crediting his landmark 1990 Rath Yatra with galvanising support for the Ram Janmabhoomi movement and invoking Maa Kamakhya and Srimanta Sankardev in his blessing.
Key Takeaways
Lal Krishna Advani enters his 100th year , prompting tributes from BJP leaders including Assam CM Himanta Biswa Sarma .
Sarma credits Advani's 1990 Rath Yatra from Somnath to Ayodhya as the catalyst for nationwide support for the Ram Janmabhoomi cause.
Advani served as Deputy Prime Minister of India from 2002 to 2004 and was BJP president multiple times.
Sarma's blessing uniquely invokes Maa Kamakhya (Guwahati) and Srimanta Sankardev , grounding a national tribute in Assamese cultural identity.
The tribute reflects a broader BJP pattern of publicly honouring founding-generation leaders to reinforce ideological continuity.
A founding father of the Bharatiya Janata Party reaches a rare milestone — and Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma was among the first to mark it. On Sunday, 8 November 2026, Sarma extended birthday greetings to former Deputy Prime Minister Lal Krishna Advani as the veteran leader enters his 100th year, calling him one of the party's founding fathers and invoking two of Assam's most revered spiritual figures in his blessing.
From Somnath to Ayodhya: the Rath Yatra that rewrote BJP history
Sarma's tribute centres on a defining moment in modern Indian political history. Advani's 1990 Rath Yatra — a chariot procession from Somnath in Gujarat to Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh — galvanised mass support for the Ram Janmabhoomi cause and dramatically expanded the BJP's electoral footprint across the country. The yatra turned a party that had won only two Lok Sabha seats in 1984 into a formidable national force, and its legacy runs directly through to the consecration of the Ram Temple at Ayodhya.
Sarma's post acknowledges this arc explicitly, crediting Advani's leadership with carrying the party 'to new heights' and describing the Rath Yatra as the engine of 'nationwide support for the Ram Janmabhoomi Punar Nirman' — the reconstruction of the Ram birthplace temple.
Kamakhya, Sankardev, and a distinctly Assamese blessing
What gives Sarma's tribute its regional texture is its closing prayer. He invokes Maa Kamakhya — the powerful Shakti Peeth temple in Guwahati, Assam — and Srimanta Sankardev, the 15th–16th century Assamese saint-scholar whose Vaishnavite philosophy remains the cultural heartbeat of the state, asking both to bless Advani with good health. The pairing of a national party patriarch with distinctly Assamese spiritual invocations is characteristic of how Sarma threads local cultural identity through national party narratives.
A founding generation still at the centre of BJP's story
Advani, who served as Deputy Prime Minister from 2002 to 2004 under Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and held the party presidency multiple times, is among the last surviving architects of the BJP's rise from a marginal outfit in the early 1980s to India's dominant political force. For current leaders like Sarma, public tributes to Advani serve a dual purpose: honouring institutional memory and reaffirming continuity with the ideological foundations on which the party was built.
The centenary year is a moment the broader BJP ecosystem is likely to mark through tributes, retrospectives, and celebrations of the party's organisational history.
Point of View
He draws an unbroken ideological line from the party's 1980s founding through to the Ayodhya temple consecration, reinforcing the narrative that today's BJP fulfils promises made by its founders. The invocation of Maa Kamakhya and Srimanta Sankardev is equally deliberate — it allows Sarma to anchor a national party moment within Assamese cultural sovereignty, a consistent feature of his political brand. As Advani's centenary year unfolds, such tributes will serve as recurring touchpoints for a party keen to project historical depth alongside its current dominance.
NationPress
8 Nov 2026
Frequently Asked Questions
How old is Lal Krishna Advani in 2026?
Lal Krishna Advani enters his 100th year in 2026 , as noted in Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma's tribute post on 8 November 2026 .
What was Advani's Rath Yatra and why was it significant?
Advani's 1990 Rath Yatra was a chariot procession from Somnath in Gujarat to Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh that mobilised mass national support for the Ram Janmabhoomi temple cause and helped transform BJP into a major electoral force.
What role did Lal Krishna Advani play in the BJP?
Advani is one of the founding fathers of the BJP , served as party president multiple times , and was Deputy Prime Minister of India from 2002 to 2004 in the Vajpayee government.
Who is Himanta Biswa Sarma?
Himanta Biswa Sarma is the Chief Minister of Assam and a senior BJP leader who also serves as convenor of the North-East Democratic Alliance (NEDA) .
Why did Himanta mention Maa Kamakhya and Srimanta Sankardev in his tribute?
Maa Kamakhya is a major Shakti Peeth temple in Guwahati, Assam , and Srimanta Sankardev is Assam's revered 15th–16th century saint-scholar ; Sarma invoked both as a distinctly Assamese blessing for Advani's health.
