Atal Bihari Vajpayee to receive Bharat Ratna?

While speculation is rife over the names, TV channels reported that there could be more than one recipient of Bharat Ratna this year and Vajpayee could be awarded while names of freedom fighter Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose and Madan Mohan Malviya were doing the rounds too. 

Vajpayee, who will turn 90 in December this year, was the eleventh Prime Minister of India, first for 13 days in 1996 and then from 1998 to 2004. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader is the first Prime Minister from outside the Indian National Congress party to serve a full five-year term.

According to an NDTV report the home ministry has asked the Reserve Bank of India to keep five Bharat Ratna medallions ready.

Last year December when BJP was not in power at the centre, on the occasion of the 89th birthday of Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the party had urged President Pranab Mukherjee to confer him with the award.

 Meanwhile as the name of Netaji also did the rounds, a prominent member of the Bose family said Netaji and Gandhiji should be kept above any award.

"Vajpayee himself is a perfectly good candidate," said Trinamool Congress MP, Harvard professor and Netaji's grand nephew Sugata Bose, adding that Netaji should be kept above it.

He told NDTV that anyone with a sense of history will keep Netaji above it.

The previous United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government had this year awarded cricketer Sachin Tendulkar and scientist CNR Rao as Bharat Ratna.

Meanwhile, Congress spokesperson Manish Tiwari tweeted: "If govt [is] going the historical route on Bharat Ratna's it should also consider the names of Bhagat Singh, Rajguru, Sukdev, Lala Laj Pat Rai.. the founders of the INA Rash Behari Bose, Gen Mohan Singh, Annie Besant & AO Hume, Gopal Krishan Gokhle as well as determine whether