New Delhi, April 6: L.K. Advani's wife Kamla passed away today following a cardiac arrest. She was 84.

Kamla had been ailing for some time, remaining largely immobile, and died at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences here.

Kamlaji, as BJP leaders addressed her, had put in her last public appearance on February 25 this year when the Advanis celebrated their 51st marriage anniversary.

Advani scrupulously celebrated two occasions each year: his birthday on November 8 and the marriage anniversary.

But his anniversary guest list in February this year excluded most of the usual invitees from political parties and the media. It was pared down to include only the BJP's superannuated and out-of-favour quartet - Murli Manohar Joshi, Yashwant Sinha, Shanta Kumar and Arun Shourie - and a few others.

Shatrughan Sinha, the actor-MP whose ties with the current party leadership are also strained, was invited but couldn't make it.

On their 50th anniversary in 2015, the Advanis had renewed their vows and exchanged the traditional varmala (wedding garland). Their daughter Pratibha, a TV channel producer, screened a montage of their years together at a grand party that drew politicians from across the spectrum. The Advanis also have a son, Jayant.

Congress president Sonia Gandhi, who has come to share a rapport with Advani in the recent past, could not make it last year but sent a letter, reminding him that February 25 was equally special to her because she too had married Rajiv Gandhi on that date.

Today, Sonia expressed deep grief at Kamla's death and said she "shares" the pain of her family members.

Advani had married Kamla in 1965 when he was in the Delhi unit of the Jana Sangh. His younger sister had arranged the match.

In a 2008 interview with The Telegraph, Advani had recalled that when he first met Kamla, he was in trousers but showed up in his regimen dhoti-kurta the next day, prompting her to joke much later that had she known he was going to don a dhoti, she would not have said yes to the match.

She addressed Advani by his first name, Lal, and gave up non-vegetarian food after marriage to a sworn vegetarian.

Although Kamla never took an overt interest in Advani's political career, she was the perfect back-up, looking after everything related to their home and financial matters. She occasionally campaigned for him in Gandhinagar, his Lok Sabha constituency.

In a tweet today, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said he was "deeply pained and saddened by Kamla Advaniji's demise". "She always inspired and motivated karyakartas (workers) and was L.K. Advaniji's pillar of strength."

The BJP today completed 36 years of existence, owing its pre-eminence in no small measure to Advani's leadership of the Ramjanmbahoomi temple movement.