Chandra Shekhar, 80; lawmaker briefly served as India’s prime minister
Chandra Shekhar, 80, a socialist legislator from India’s Uttar Pradesh state who was briefly the country’s prime minister, died Sunday of multiple myeloma at a hospital in New Delhi.
Sanjeev Chaube, a spokesman for Indraprastha Apollo Hospital, said Shekhar had been receiving treatment for the disease, a cancer of plasma cells, for several months.
Shekhar headed a coalition government for a brief period in 1990 and 1991.
He was a member of the Congress Party until the 1970s, when he left to join the Janata Party, or People’s Party. In 1990 he formed the Samajwadi Janata Party, or Socialist People’s Party.
India’s current prime minister, Manmohan Singh, described Shekhar as a secular nationalist who was committed to people’s welfare and national development, the Press Trust of India news agency said.
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