Gujral no more

school politician who rose to become Prime Minister heading a rickety coalition government in the late 1990s, died here today after a brief illness.

The 92-year-old left-leaning liberal breathed his last in a private hospital here at 3.27 PM after a multi-organ failure, family sources said. He was admitted to the hospital on November 19 with a lung infection.

The former Prime Minister, who was on ventilator support, was unwell for sometime. He was on dialysis for over a year and suffered a serious chest infection some days ago.

Gujral leaves two sons, one of whom Naresh Gujral is a Rajya Sabha MP and an Akali Dal leader, and brother Satish Gujral, who is a prominent painter and architect. His wife Sheila, who died in 2011, was a poet.

The body will be kept for public to pay respects at his residence in Janpath in central Delhi tomorrow morning and will cremated at 3 PM near Samata Sthal, the memorial of late Jagjivan Ram.

The news of his death was conveyed to Parliament by Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde after which both the Houses adjourned. There will be a condolence references made to him on Monday.

Gujral had participated in underground activity in Punjab in his student days during freedom struggle and was in public service for decades.

An intellectual, he had propounded the 'Gujral Doctrine' of five principles for maintaining good neighbourly relations that became the hallmark of his policy of friendly relations with countries in South Asia.

President Pranab Mukherjee, Vice President Hamid Ansari, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar, Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, Union Ministers and political leaders were among those who paid glowing tributes to the late leader.

"In his passing, the country has lost an intellectual, a scholar-statesman and a gentleman politician whose liberal and humanist vision was rooted in the teachings of the leaders of our freedom movement," the Prime Minister said in his message. MORE