New Delhi, Oct 18: Former Union minister Nayaran Dutt Tiwari passed away on Thursday evening at the Max Hospital in Delhi’s Saket after a prolonged illness. Tiwari passed away on his 93rd birthday. He was hospitalised and put in intensive care at the same hospital in September last year after suffering from a brain stroke.

Tiwari had joined the Congress in 1963 and is the only Indian politician to serve as the chief minister of two states – Uttar Pradesh and later, Uttarakhand. He was considered close to the Gandhi family and was elected the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh in 1976. He was elected as the state CM for the second time in 1984 and during this tenure, helped Congress win the state elections held months after Indira Gandhi’s assassination the same year.

His tenure lasted for a little over one year and in 1985, Tiwari was replaced. However, he returned to power for the third time in Uttar Pradesh in 1988 for a tenure that lasted about seven months.

During his time with Congress, Tiwari was elected to both the houses of Parliament. In 1980, he was elected to the 7th Lok Sabha and served as a union minister in several portfolios in the 1980s: starting with Planning, and also remained Deputy Chairman of Planning Commission.

Between 1985 and 1988 he served as a member of Rajya Sabha.

In 2002, the Congress stalwart became chief minister of Uttarakhand and till date, is the only chief minister in the state to complete a five-year term.

Tiwari has also served as the Governor of Andhra Pradesh between 2007 and 2009. However, he resigned after he was caught in a controversy after a sting operation at Raj Bhavan.

Tiwari was hit by controversy when lawyer Rohit Shekhar had filed a paternity suit claiming Tiwari was his biological father. In a petition to the Delhi court, Shekhar had claimed that he was born out of an illegitimate relationship between the Congress veteran and his mother Ujjwala.

The claims were dismissed by Tiwari but the Congress leader was asked to undergo DNA tests by the High Court. These tests confirmed that Rohit was his biological son and an order was passed by the Delhi High Court on the same in 2014.

Earlier this year, Rohit had joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the presence of party president Amit Shah, ahead of the assembly elections in the state.

Courtesy: www.financialexpress.com

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Chandigarh (PTI): The Congress on Thursday announced candidates for eight of the nine Lok Sabha seats it is contesting in Haryana, fielding former Union minister Kumari Selja, Rajya Sabha MP Deepender Hooda and youth leader Divyanshu Budhiraja, besides two sitting MLAs.

The party has also fielded former MP Jai Prakash and leaders Satpal Brahmachari and Mahendra Pratap, according to the list released late Thursday evening.

The Congress is contesting nine of the 10 Lok Sabha seats in Haryana. It has not yet announced its candidate for the Gurugram constituency.

The Aam Aadmi Party, a constituent of the opposition INDIA bloc, will contest the Kurukshetra seat.

Congress general secretary and former Union minister Selja will contest from the Sirsa (reserved) seat and sitting MLAs Varun Choudhary and Rao Dan Singh from the Ambala (reserved) and the Bhiwani-Mahendragarh Lok Sabha seats, respectively.

Deepender Hooda, son of former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, will enter the fray from Rohtak. He has represented the Rohtak parliamentary constituency three times in the past.

Jai Prakash has been fielded from Hisar, the Congress' Haryana youth wing president Divanshu Budhiraja from Karnal, Satpal Brahmachari from Sonipat and Mahendra Pratap from Faridabad.