The BJP Wednesday celebrated the 89th birthday of Atal Bihari Vajpayee as National Development Day and urged President Pranab Mukherjee to confer the former prime minister with the Bharat Ratna, India's highest civilian award.

 

 Harish Khurana and Satish Upadhyay, spokespersons for the Delhi unit of the Bharatiya Janata party (BJP), have written a letter to the president urging him to confer the Bharat Ratna on Vajpayee.

 

 "Crores of people of the country and the world want that Vajpayee be conferred the highest honour of the country," a statement from the BJP's Delhi unit quoted them as saying.