Vajpayee's first tryst with politics was seen in August 1942, when he and his elder brother Prem were arrested for 23 days during the Quit India movement.
Background
Atal Bihari Vajpayee (born 25 December 1924 in Gwalior) is an Indian statesman who served as the 10th Prime Minister of India, in two non-consecutive terms, first for 13 days in 1996 and then from 1998 to 2004.
A parliamentarian for over four decades, Vajpayee was elected to the Lok Sabha (the lower house of India's Parliament) nine times, and twice to the Rajya Sabha (upper house). He also served as the Member of Parliament from Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, until 2009, when he retired from active politics due to health concerns. Vajpayee was one amongst the founder members of the erstwhile Jana Sangh and had also been its president. He was also the Minister of External Affairs in the cabinet of Morarji Desai. When the Janata government collapsed, Vajpayee renamed his former party Jana Sangh as Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Education
Vajpayee attended Gwalior's Victoria College (now Laxmi Bai College) and graduated with distinction in Hindi, English and Sanskrit. He completed his post-graduation with an M.A. in Political Science from DAV College, Kanpur, in first-class.
Career
In 1951, he was deputed to work for the newly formed Bharatiya Jana Sangh, a right-wing political party associated with the RSS that espoused the Hindu cause. He soon became a follower and aide of party leader Syama Prasad Mookerjee. In 1954, Vajpayee was with Mookerjee when he went on a fast-unto-death in Kashmir to protest against perceived inferior treatment of non-Kashmiri Indian visitors to the state.In 1957, Vajpayee was elected to the Lok Sabha, the lower house of India's Parliament, where his oratorial skills so impressed Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru that he predicted that Vajpayee would someday become India's Prime Minister.Vajpayee was referred to as the Bhishma Pitamah of Indian Politics by Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh during his speech in the Rajya Sabha.