Former Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand Narayan Dutt Tiwari died after a prolonged illness in New Delhi on Thursday. Incidentally, Tiwari’s demise came at a time when his family members and supporters were celebrating his 93rd birthday. Tiwari was admitted to Max Super Speciality Hospital where he died around 2.50 pm.
The veteran politician was admitted to the hospital in September 2017 after suffering a brain stroke and his condition was being monitored by a team of doctors.
Besides senior Congress leaders, including Pramod Tewari, state chief Raj Babbar, leaders of other parties including Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, mourned Tiwari’s demise. In a message, Yogi said: “I mourn the death of Tiwariji. He was an able administrator. I convey my condolences to the bereaved family. I have spoken to them.”
Deputy CMs Dinesh Sharma and Keshav Prasad Maurya, ministers Shrikant Sharma, Surya Pratap Shahi and others also condoled Tiwari’s demise.
Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav, former SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav, Bahujan Samaj Party president Mayawati and several leaders termed it as a big loss to Indian politics.
Popularly known as `Vikas Putra’, especially in his home state Uttarakhand, Tiwari’s long political career included his three terms as UP Chief Minister, becoming the only Uttarakhand CM to complete a full term and holding key portfolios at the Centre.
But these achievements were somewhat shadowed by a couple of controversies that dogged him in the later years of his life. The Andhra Pradesh Raj Bhawan sex scandal and the paternity suit of a love child filed against him when he was in his 80’s were to name a few.
Tiwari won his first election on a ticket of Socialist Party from Nainital Assembly seat in 1952. A decade later in 1965, he joined the Congress and stuck with it for most part of his life. There was a brief period in the 90’s when he floated his own All India Indira Congress (Tiwari) with Arjun Singh.
Last year, long after he had outlived his usefulness for the Congress, Tiwari announced his support for the Bharatiya Janata Party ahead of the Uttarakhand Assembly elections.
Tiwari’s political career began before Independence. As a teenager, he was jailed for 15 months in Nainital prison, where his freedom-fighter father was lodged too. On his release, he joined Allahabad University and became the president of its students’ union in 1947.
In 1976, Tiwari became the CM of Uttar Pradesh for the first time. Two more stints followed in the 1980s.
At the Centre, Tiwari served as deputy chairperson of Planning Commission. Over the years, he also held portfolios of Planning, Finance, Petroleum and External Affairs in the Union Cabinet. Tiwari is said to have nurtured Prime Ministerial aspirations at one time, and there was speculations that he was in the running in 1991 when the party eventually picked PV Narasimha Rao. That was also the year when he lost the Nainital Lok Sabha seat by just 800 votes. He was the third CM of the newly formed Uttarakhand state but the first one to complete a full term, from 2002 to 2007.
Tiwari is credited with helping the new state, formed two years before he took charge, gain a firm footing. His rapport with his Opposition colleagues is said to have got Uttarakhand an industrial package from the Vajpayee government at the Centre, which was crucial for the state’s early development.
Bajaj Auto chairman Rahul Bajaj once said: “The plant we set up in Pantnagar was only at Tiwariji’s request. We could not say no to him.”
In 2007, Tiwari was made Governor of Andhra Pradesh but two years later, a video clip showing three women in bed with an elderly man in Raj Bhawan brought the veteran politician’s career to a virtual end. Citing ‘health grounds’, Tiwari put in his papers and shifted to Dehradun. In 2008, Rohit Shekhar filed a paternity suit claiming that Tiwari was his biological father. The result in 2012 of a court-ordered DNA test proved the claim to be right. Tiwari pleaded with the media to let him be himself. “I have every right to live my life my way. No one has the right to look into my private life. Please respect my privacy,” he was quoted as saying. In 2014, Tiwari married Shekhar’s mother Ujjwala Sharma in Lucknow, finding a new family in the mother and son at the age of 88. He recently vacated his official residence as former CM of UP in Lucknow following a Supreme Court direction.
