Former Indian PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee in critical condition

India’s top leaders and politicians are visiting the New Delhi hospital where doctors say former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee is in critical condition after a prolonged illness.

Ninety-three-year-old Vajpayee has been hospitalized for more than two months after being admitted for treatment of a kidney infection and chest congestion. He suffered a stroke in 2009.

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited him Wednesday night and Vice-President Venkiah Naidu on Thursday.

Vajpayee, a Hindu nationalist from the Bharatiya Janata Party, ordered nuclear weapons tests in 1988 that stoked fears of atomic war with rival Pakistan.

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But he later launched a groundbreaking peace process with Islamabad.

He served three times as India’s prime minister; for 13 days in 1996, for 11 months from 1998 to 1999, and then from 1998 to 2004.