Former UP CM Kalyan Singh passes away after prolonged illness

Lucknow: Former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister and BJP Veteran leader Kalyan Singh (89) passed away on Saturday due to sepsis and multi-organ failure. Singh was admitted to the ICU of Sanjay Gandhi Postgraduate Institute of Medical Sciences (SGPGI) on July 4 in a critical condition.

Singh, who also served as the Rajasthan governor, breathed his last at 9.15 pm after his condition worsened due to kidney infection on Saturday.

Singh's body has been brought to his Mall Avenue residence where Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and his Cabinet colleagues paid tribuites to the departed soul. The body will be kept at the Vidhan Bhawan on Sunday before being taken to the party office. The cremation will be held at his hometown in Aligarh.

Earlier, Adityanath had tweeted the news of the veteran leader's demise. The state Cabinet held meeting later on Saturday night to mourn the death of Singh.

A three-day state mourning has been announced in Uttar Pradesh and a holiday will be observed on Monday as a mark of respect to the departed leader.

Deputy Chief Ministers Dinesh Sharma and Keshav Maurya have expressed their grief over the passing away of Singh, while senior leaders across the political spectrum have termed his demise as a loss to Indian politics.

Akhil Bhartiya Akhara Parishad chief Mahant Narendra Giri said that Indian politics has lost one of its tallest leaders.

Singh was the Uttar Pradesh chief minister when the Babri mosque was demolished by a mob of "karsevaks" in Ayodhya on December 6, 1992. Along with BJP veterans L K Advani and M M Joshi, he was among the 32 people acquitted in the demolition case in September last year.

A Lodhi leader, Singh was instrumental in the rise of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to power in Uttar Pradesh in the 1990s.

Singh is survived by his wife Ramvati Devi, son Rajveer Singh, who is the Lok Sabha MP from Etah, and grandson Sandeep Singh, who is the minister of state for finance, technical education, medical education in Uttar pradesh.

Born on January 5, 1932, Singh first became an MLA in 1967. Since then, he won the Assembly polls several times, held important posts in the BJP and was appointed the governor of Rajasthan in the last phase of his public life.

In 1991, Singh became the first BJP chief minister of the country's most populous state. A little over a year later, the Babri Masjid was demolished as the Sangh Parivar campaign to build a Ram temple at the same spot picked momentum, following which he resigned.

He got his second shot at the top post in September 1997, becoming chief minister again under a six-month rotation formula with the BSP. The arrangement collapsed soon with the BSP withdrawing support.