Former Gujarat chief minister Keshubhai Patel passes away at 92

Keshubhai Patel, a Bharatiya Janata Party veteran, was a two-term chief minister of Gujarat and a six-time member of the Legislative Assembly.

Moneycontrol News

October 29, 2020 / 01:50 PM IST

Former Gujarat CM Keshubhai Patel (Image courtesy: Twitter/@kishanreddybjp)

Former Gujarat chief minister Keshubhai Patel passed away on October 29 after prolonged illness. Patel, 92, had recovered from COVID-19 recently and was rushed to a hospital in Ahmedabad on October 29 following health complications, according to a report by news agency PTI.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) veteran served as Gujarat's chief minister for a brief term in 1995 and again between 1998 and 2001. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had succeeded him as the state's chief minister.

Patel was also a six-time member of the Gujarat Legislative Assembly. He quit the BJP in 2012 and floated the Gujarat Parivartan Party, which performed poorly in 2012 Assembly polls and merged with the BJP in 2014.

Born in Visavadar town of Junagadh district in 1928, Patel joined the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) in 1945 as a pracharak before starting his political career as a worker for the Jan Sangh.

"Though he recently recovered from coronavirus, his health kept deteriorating due to post-COVID effects in the body," PTI quoted Patel's son Bharat Patel as saying. "We rushed him to a hospital after his health deteriorated today morning. Though doctors tried hard, he could not survive," Patel told reporters.

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