Lal Krishna Advani (born 8 November 1927) is an Indian lawyer, journalist, politician and statesman who served as the 7th deputy prime minister of India from 2002 to 2004. He is one of the co-founders of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and a member of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a Hindutva nationalist organisation. He was the longest serving Minister of Home Affairs serving for 6 years and 64 days from 1998 to 2004, until his protége Amit Shah overtook him in 2025. He is also the longest serving Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, as well as the longest serving President of the BJP. He was the BJP's prime ministerial candidate during the 1989, 1991, and 2009 general elections.
Advani was born in Karachi and migrated to India during the Partition of India and settled down in Bombay where he completed his college education. Advani joined the RSS in 1941 at the age of fourteen and worked as a pracharak (RSS officer) in Rajasthan. In 1951, Advani became a member of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh party founded by Syama Prasad Mookerjee and performed various roles, including supervisor of parliamentary affairs, general secretary, and president of the Delhi unit. In 1967, he was elected as the chairman of the First Delhi metropolitan council and served till 1970 while becoming a member of the RSS national executive. In 1970, Advani became a member of the Rajya Sabha for the first time and would go on to serve four terms until 1989. He became the president of Jan Sangh in 1973, and it merged into the Janata Party before the 1977 general election. Following the Janata party's victory in the elections, Advani became the union minister for Information and Broadcasting and leader of the house in Rajya Sabha.
In 1980, Lal Krishna was one of the founding members of the BJP along with Atal Bihari Vajpayee and served as the president of the party three times. He was elected to the Lok Sabha for the first time in 1989 where he served seven terms. In 1992, he was alleged to have been part of the Demolition of the Babri Masjid, but was acquitted by the courts due to lack of evidence. Following the same, he was one of the chief proponents of the movement to build a temple over the disputed Ram Janmabhoomi site in Ayodhya and the subsequent rise of Hindutva, a Hindu nationalist ideology, in the late 1990s. He has served as leader of opposition in both the houses. He was the minister of home affairs from 1998 to 2004 and deputy prime minister from 2002 to 2004. He served in the Indian parliament until 2019 and is credited for rise of BJP as a major political party. In 2015, he was awarded the Padma Vibhushan, India's second highest civilian honour and in 2024, he was conferred with Bharat Ratna, India's highest civilian honour.
Advani was born on 8 November 1927 in Karachi, British India, in a Sindhi Hindu Lohana family to Kishanchand D. Advani and Gyani Devi.
Advani was educated at St. Patrick's High School, Karachi, and D. G. National College in Hyderabad, Sindh. His family was forced to flee Sindh and came to India during the partition of India and settled in Mumbai, where he graduated in law from the Government Law College.
Advani married Kamla Advani in February 1965, and had a son, Jayant, and a daughter, Pratibha. Pratibha is a television producer who also supported her father during Advani's active politics. His wife died on 6 April 2016 due to old age. Advani resides in Delhi.
Advani joined the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) in 1941 at the age of fourteen. He became a pracharak (full-time worker) conducting shakhas and became the secretary of the Karachi unit in 1947. After the partition of India, Advani was a pracharak in Rajasthan working across Alwar, Bharatpur, Kota, Bundi and Jhalawar districts until 1952.
1951–1970: Jan Sangh and Delhi council chairman
Advani became a member of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh (BJS), a political party founded in 1951 by Syama Prasad Mookerjee in collaboration with the RSS. He was appointed as the secretary to S. S. Bhandari, then general secretary of the Jan Sangh in Rajasthan. In 1957, he moved to Delhi and became the general secretary and later, president of the Delhi unit of the Jana Sangh. From 1966 to 1967 he served as the leader of BJS in the Delhi Metropolitan Council (DMC). After the 1967 Delhi Metropolitan Council election, he was elected as the chairman of the council and served until 1970. He also assisted K. R. Malkani with the publication of Organiser, the weekly newsletter of the RSS and became a member of its national executive in 1966.
1971–1975: Parliament entry and Jan Sangh leader
In 1970, Advani became a member of the Rajya Sabha from Delhi for the six-year tenure. In 1973, he was elected as the president of BJS at the Kanpur session of the party working committee meeting.
1976–1980: Janata party and cabinet minister
Advani was reelected to the Rajya Sabha from Gujarat in 1976 for the second time. After the imposition of The Emergency and a crackdown on opposition parties by then-prime minister, Indira Gandhi, BJS and other opposition parties merged to form the Janata Party. In the 1977 election, the Janata Party won a landslide victory due to the widespread unpopularity of the state of emergency imposed by Indira Gandhi. Morarji Desai became the prime minister with Advani becoming the Minister of Information and Broadcasting. The government did not complete its five year term and was dissolved to call fresh elections in 1980 where Janata Party lost to the Indian National Congress. Subsequently, Advani became the leader of opposition in Rajya Sabha.
On 6 April 1980, Advani along with few of the erstwhile members of the Jana Sangh quit the Janata Party and formed the Bharatiya Janata Party, with Atal Bihari Vajpayee as its first president. Though the previous government lasted briefly from 1977 till 1980 and was marred with factional wars, the period saw a rise in support for the RSS which culminated into the formation of the BJP. In 1982, he was elected to the Rajya Sabha for the third time from Madhya Pradesh representing the BJP. BJP won only two seats in the 1984 election with the Congress winning a landslide on the back of a sympathy wave due to the assassination of Indira Gandhi. This failure led to a shift in the party's stance with Advani being appointed party president and the BJP turning to Hindutva ideology of Jana Sangh.
Under Advani, BJP became the political face of the Ayodhya dispute over the Ram Janmabhoomi site when the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) began a movement for the construction of a temple dedicated to the Hindu deity Rama at the site of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya. The dispute centered on the basis of the belief that the site was the birthplace of Rama, and that a temple once stood there that had been demolished by the Mughal emperor Babur with the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) supporting the claim. BJP supported the campaign and made it a part of their election manifesto for the 1989 elections, helping it win 86 seats with Advani getting elected to the Lok Sabha for the first time. Advani became the leader of opposition in Lok Sabha when VP Singh formed the National Front government.
1990–1997: Rath yatras and rise of BJP
Advani often organised rath yatras or processions to boost the popularity of the BJP and unify Hindutva ideology. He organised six rath yatras across the country with the first one in 1990.
Ram Rath Yatra: Advani started his first yatra from Somnath in Gujarat on 25 September 1990 which concluded at Ayodhya on 30 October 1990. The procession was linked to the dispute at Ram Janmabhoomi site at Ayodhya and was stopped in Bihar by then Chief Minister Lalu Yadav with Advani himself being arrested on the orders of V. P. Singh, then Prime Minister of India.