New Delhi, July 8
Country’s 11th Prime Minister, Chandra Shekhar, who headed a shaky coalition government installed by the outgoing Congress regime for just seven months in 1990-91, died here this morning after a long battle against bone cancer. He was 80.
Among the country’s most respected politicians, he died a week after his 80th birthday. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh visited him at the hospital last night after hearing about his deteriorating condition.
The Prime Minister later in a statement described Chandra Shekhar as a “true secular nationalist” who “belonged to a generation that felt deeply about the importance of ideals and idealism in politics”.
The former Prime Minister was admitted to the Indraprastha Apollo Hospital here two-and-a-half months ago. He died at the hospital around 8.45 am. He is survived by two sons and will be
cremated here on Monday.
Incidentally, his last political act came from the hospital bed just a few days ago when he issued a statement supporting the Presidential candidature of Vice-President Bhairon Singh Shekhawat whom he called a “public figure of eminence, high repute, impeccable credentials”.
In his statement the former Prime Minister had said the Vice-President combined a lifetime’s experience of dedicated public service with rare qualities of head and heart. “A public figure of eminence, high repute, impeccable credentials, Shekhawat has discharged his latest responsibilities as the country’s Vice-President entirely beyond party affiliations and with impeccable secular credentials,” he said.
“I wholeheartedly and without any reservation endorse/ propose the election of Mr Bhairon Singh Shekhawat as our next President,” he said in the statement.
Chandra Shekhar would be remembered the most for the role he played in forging together the first non-Congress government in the country in 1977 after Indira Gandhi was stunningly defeated in the election in a nationwide backlash against her repressive Emergency regime.
As the president of the Janata Party, he was instrumental in bringing together a number of parties in a coalition that was headed by Morarji Desai and was in power from March 1977 to July 1979.
Later, during his brief stint as the head of government for 224 days from November 1990 to June 1991, in a controversial decision he allowed American planes to refuel in India on their way to aerial missions in the first Gulf War. This was particularly seen as going against his personal anti-American views.
He will also be remembered for his trans-country 'padyatra' for more than 4,200 km in a bid to know peoples’ problems better.
He collected a huge amount of money from the walk from ordinary people and questions were raised later as to what was done with the money that was put into a special trust created by him.
After the Chandra Shekhar government was toppled by the Congress that had initially propped him up on the specious reason that he had sent policemen to spy on its leaders, he retired to his sprawling farmhouse at Bhondsi, at the edge of the Capital, where he brainstormed with intellectuals and the dwindling band of socialists on how to tackle the problems of the country.
But despite his best efforts, he could never return again to the political mainstream because of his unbending views on issues and the strong ethical values that he attached to the way politics was practised.
A diehard socialist by heart and instinct, Chandra Shekhar was born on July 1, 1927, in Ibrahimpatti of Uttar Pradesh’s Ballia district. A postgraduate from the Allahabad University, he was first elected to the Rajya Sabha in 1962.
