Inder Kumar Gujral, who was India's Prime Minister for 11 months in 1997-98, died on Friday just four days before his 93rd birthday. Known as a gentleman politician, Gujral died at 3.27 p.m. Friday at a Guragon hospital of lung infection.
The government has declared seven days of state mourning and Gujral is to be given a state funeral Saturday at 3 p.m. His body is being kept at his residence, 5, Janpath for last tributes.
Gujral had been admitted to the Medanta Medicity hospital in Gurgaon with a lung infection Nov 19 and was on ventilator.
He is survived by two sons, Naresh, and Vishal Gujral, who was till recently a professor in the US, and three grandchildren. Naresh is a sitting Rajya Sabha MP from Punjab and a senior leader of the ruling Shiromani Akali Dal. His younger brother is the famed artist and sculptor Satish Gujral. His wife Sheila predeceased him in July 2011.
The union cabinet, at a special session convened to pay homage to Gujral, passed a resolution expressing profound sorrow at his demise and said in his death India has lost a "great patriot, a visionary leader and a freedom fighter".
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.
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. The Prime Minister said in his message:
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.Singh said:
I personally have lost a friend of long standing, whose wisdom, idealism and deep concern for social equity left a great impression on me and whose counsel and opinion I often sought and valued greatly.
Gujral, who migrated from Pakistan after partition, rose to become the Prime Minister with a big slice of luck after he evolved from the grassroots -- starting as Vice President in NDMC in the '50s to later become a Union Minister under late Indira Gandhi and then India's Ambassador to the USSR.
He had left the Congress to join the Janata Dal in the late-1980s. Gujral became External Affairs Minister in the VP Singh- led National Front government in 1989. As the External Affairs Minister, he handled the fallout of the Kuwait crisis following Iraqi invasion that displaced thousands of Indians.
