Former Gujarat Chief Minister Keshubhai Patel passes away at 92
Ahmedabad: Former Gujarat chief minister Keshubhai Patel passed away on Thursday after a prolonged illness. He breathed his last at a hospital in Ahmedabad.
Keshubhai had complained of chest pain, after which he was rushed to Sterling Hospital in Ahmedabad. The politician passed away following a cardiac arrest.
Born in Visavadar town of Junagadh district in 1928, Keshubhai Patel joined the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) in 1945 as a pracharak. He started his political career as a worker for the Jan Sangh, of which was he was a founder member, in the 1960s.
Keshubhai Patel served as the Chief Minister of Gujarat in 1995 and then from 1998 to 2001. He was a member of Gujarat Legislative Assembly six times, but then quit the BJP in 2012 and floated his own political party -- the Gujarat Parivartan Party, which performed poorly in 2012 Gujarat assembly elections. It was expanded with the merging of the Mahagujarat Janata Party and later, it was merged back with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in February 2014. In 2012, Patel was elected from Visavadar assembly seat, but later in 2014, he resigned due to ill health.
May his soul rest in peace!
