Former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Babulal Gaur (89) passed away on Wednesday morning. He died at a private hospital here. He had been admitted for the past two weeks due to a respiratory problem.
State BJP media in-charge Lokendra Parashar announced Gaur’s death in the morning.
Born in Naugeer village in Pratapgarh district of Uttar Pradesh on June 2, 1930, Gaur was the only politician in Madhya Pradesh and perhaps the only one in the country, according to some BJP leaders, who won state assembly elections from the same seat 10 times in a row.
He held several portfolios in the Madhya Pradesh cabinet before and after his tenure as the chief minister. He had been leader of the Opposition too.
Gaur took part in several movements while he was in the Opposition and was imprisoned for 19 months during the Emergency under the Maintenance of Internal Security Act (MISA).
Gaur, who started his political career as a labourer leader while engaged as a labourer in a mill in Bhopal rose to become chief minister of Madhya Pradesh in 2004, when then chief minister Uma Bharti decided to step down from her post in the wake of an arrest warrant issued against her by a Hubli court in Karnataka. He was later replaced by Shivraj Singh Chouhan in November 2005.
Gaur is survived by his daughter-in-law Krishna Gaur who is an MLA from Govindpura, the seat that Babulal Gaur had represented and grandchildren.
Paying tribute to the leader former chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan said, “An era of Madhya Pradesh politics comes to an end. Babulal Gaur will be remembered as a soldier who fought for truth and as a champion for the causes of the poor, labourers and weaker sections of society. He will remain alive in our hearts for ages as a hero who braved the police’s baton from the Goa liberation movement to Emergency days.”
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