Thekchen Chöling, Dharamsala, HP, India - Following the announcement this evening that former Prime Minister Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee had passed away at the age of 93, His Holiness the Dalai Lama wrote to Shri Vajpayee’s foster daughter, Smt Namita Bhattacharya, to express his condolences.
“I feel privileged to have known him and am honoured to have counted him as a friend,” he wrote.
“We met regularly during the course of his career and I continued to visit him at home after he retired.
“Shri Vajpayee was a truly dedicated politician. With his passing away, India has lost an eminent national leader. His eloquent support of the Tibetan people began in the late 1950s. Since then, he regularly took Indian governments to task in parliament, prompting them to take a stronger stand on Tibet.”
His Holiness concluded his tribute to this distinguished Indian statesman by offering condolences to his relatives, friends and colleagues.
