A century of life. A career that helped reshape Indian democracy. As L.K. Advani enters his hundredth year, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman shared on Sunday, November 8, 2026, an article penned by Prime Minister Narendra Modi that traces the arc of Advani's extraordinary political journey — from the dusty districts of Rajasthan to the corridors of South Block.

Modi's tribute, published on his personal platform, opens with Advani's roots as an RSS Pracharak — a grassroots organiser who moved across different parts of Rajasthan before making his way to New Delhi. It was in the national capital that a historic partnership quietly took root.

The Advani–Vajpayee bond: a rarity in Indian politics

The centrepiece of Modi's tribute is an observation that doubles as a lesson in political history. 'It is rare for two towering political leaders to work together for several decades, cooperating with each other without becoming competitors,' Modi writes. 'Advani Ji and Atal Ji set a remarkable example.'

Together, L.K. Advani and Atal Bihari Vajpayee co-founded the Bharatiya Janata Party in 1980 after the Janata Party experiment collapsed. What followed was one of Indian politics' most consequential partnerships — two men who built an opposition movement from the ground up and then led it to national power. The NDA coalition government formed in 1998 and re-elected in 1999 stood as the most visible proof of what their decades of combined effort had produced.

From Rajasthan pracharak to Bharat Ratna

Advani's journey — from RSS ground-level organiser in Rajasthan to Deputy Prime Minister and eventual recipient of the Bharat Ratna, India's highest civilian honour — spans a political era that few leaders have witnessed from the inside, let alone shaped. Modi's tribute frames this not merely as biography but as an example of 'immense diligence' applied across every responsibility Advani ever shouldered.

The article, linked in Sitharaman's post, calls on readers to visit narendramodi.in for the full text — a rare, long-form personal tribute from a sitting Prime Minister to a living party elder entering his centenary year.

BJP's tradition of honouring its founding generation

Sitharaman's decision to amplify the tribute reflects a broader pattern in the BJP's public communication: publicly commemorating the foundational leaders whose work created the conditions for the party's current dominance. For the party, the Advani–Vajpayee narrative is not just nostalgia — it is a documented story of ideological continuity and institutional patience, the proof that opposition can become government without abandoning its roots.

As Advani crosses into his centenary year, that story is being retold at the highest levels of Indian political life — and the whole country is being invited to read it.