New Delhi: Former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Kalyan Singh passed away here on Saturday. He was 89.
The senior BJP leader had been undergoing treatment in the intensive care unit of the Sanjay Gandhi Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences (SGPGIMS) in the national capital since July 4.
A panel of experts from the hospital’s nephrology, cardiology, neurology, endocrinology, and neuro-otology departments had been formed to attend to the former Rajasthan Governor.
Earlier, he was admitted to the Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital.
On Friday, the hospital authorities informed that the BJP veteran’s health condition was critical. Senior BJP leaders including Union Home Minister Amit Shah and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh visited the leader at the hospital earlier this month. Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath visited Kalyan Singh at the ICU on Friday.
“Kalyan Singh’s health status is critical and is on a life-saving support system,” the hospital said in a statement. It said he is under close observation of the doctors.
Singh was Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state, twice — June 1991 to December 1992 and September 1997 to November 1999. He also served as Governor of Rajasthan between 2014 and 2019.
His first term as Chief Minister is remembered for the demolition of the long-disputed Babri mosque in Ayodhya on December 6, 1992. This incident sent shock waves across the country and is widely viewed as a milestone in modern India’s socio-political history and in the rise of his party, the BJP.
Singh had resigned as Chief Minister following the demolition while the then Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao’s government dismissed the Uttar Pradesh government on the same day. He, along with other BJP stalwarts like LK Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi, was charged with conspiracy for the incident.
Born in Atrauli town of Uttar Pradesh’s Aligarh district, he was first elected to the state legislature in 1967.
Last year, a Lucknow court acquitted Mr Singh and others in the case.
Kalyan Singh is survived with his son Rajveer who is a BJP MP from Etah and grandson Sandeep, who is a minister in the Yogi government. With agency inputs
