Last Adieu to political stalwart N D Tiwari

LAST ADIEU TO NARAYAN DUTT TIWARI

The 93 year old veteran Congress leader and three time UP and one time UK chief minister Narayan Dutt Tiwari has been given the last farewell today when he was consigned to flames at the Chitra Sheela Ghat at Haldwani in the presence of thousands of his followers.

Late Narayan Dutt Tiwari breathed his last at the Max Hospital Saket on 18th October coincidently on the day he was born. It was his 93rd birthday having born on 18th October 1925 in his village in Kumaon Uttarakhand. The Uttarakhand chief minister Trivendra Singh Rawat, the state minister of Textiles Ajay Tamata, the former chief mnister and MP Dr. Ramesh Pokhroyal, Nishank, the Uttarakhand Pradesh Congress Committee president Pritam Singh, the BJP chief of Uttarakhand Ajay Bhatt several state ministers, MP’ s and MLAs including a good number of late leaders followers were present at his funeral.

Prior to his cremation his body was kept in Delhi and Lucknow where the national leaders including former PM Dr. Manmohan Singh, Sonia Gandhi n Rahul Gandhi including several VIPs laid wraths and paid last floral tributes. After the sad departure of ND Tiwari the last political stalwart of the Nehru- Indira era has gone.
Born on 18th October 1925 in a tiny village of Uttarakhand N. D Tiwari was greatly influenced by the freedom movement and despitehis father not able to fund his higher education went to Allahabad and passed MA in first division winning the Gild medal.

He actively participated in the freedom movement and was recognised by Nehru n later Indira Gandhi for his immense political acumen.
Primarily a socialist in the first election in Uttar Pradesh after the independence for the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly held in 1952, he was elected from Nanital constituency and became an MLA for the first time on Praja Samajwadi Party ticket. In 1957, he was elected from the Nainital legislative constituency, and became the leader of Opposition in the Assembly.
In 1963, Tiwari joined the Indian National Congress party, and was elected Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) from the Kashipur constituency in 1965 and was subsequently appointed a minister in the Government of Uttar Pradesh.

After that he also remained Minister for Finance and Parliamentary Affairs in the Chaudhary Charan Singh Government (1979–1980). In 1968, he established Jawaharlal Nehru National Youth Centre (JNNYC), a voluntary organisation. He remained the first President of Indian Youth Congress from 1969 to 1971.
Tiwari was the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh for three yerms: from January 1976 to April 1977, from August 1984 to September 1985 and from June 1988 to December 1988. He was elected to 7th Lok Sabha in 1980, and served as a union minister in several portfolios in the 1980s: starting with Planning, and also remained Deputy Chairman of Planning Commission.

Thereafter he became a member of Rajya Sabha 1985-1988, during this period he also remained the Minister of Industries in September 1985 and in addition to that portfolio, became minister of Petroleum in 1986. He then served as India’s External Affairs Minister from October 1986 until July 1987, at which point he became Minister of Finance and Commerce. He served in that position until June 1988, when he became chief minister of Uttar Pradesh for the third time.

He was an unsuccessful contender to be Prime Minister of India in the early 1990s but was pipped to the post by P. V. Narasimha Rao. In 1994, he resigned from Congress and formed his own All India Indira Congress (Tiwari) along with senior Congress leader, Arjun Singh in 1995. He joined back when Sonia Gandhi came at the helm of affairs of the party two years later, and after a devastating defeat of the party under Narasimha Rao during the general elections in 1996. Tiwari was elected to the 11th Lok Sabha in 1996, and again to the 13th Lok Sabha in 1999.
He later served as the Chief Minister of Uttarakhand, which was carved out of Uttar Pradesh, from 2002 through 2007. He resigned on 5 March 2006, citing his age and left office in March 2007 following setbacks from his party in the state elections.

Narayan Dutt Tiwari was appointed as Governor of Andhra Pradesh on 19 August 2007 and was sworn in on 22 August. Following a controversy over his involvement in a sex scandal, he resigned as the Governor on 26 December 2009, citing “health grounds”; subsequently he relocated to Dehradun, Uttarakhand.
He married Dr. Smt Ujjwala Sharma at the age of 88 and accepted Rohit Shekhar as his biological son who had gone to the court to claim his right as the biological son aling with her mother who wanted to be called his legal wife.

On 18 January 2017, along with his son Rohit Shekhar Tiwari (Advocate & Former Advisor, Government of Uttar Pradesh) and his wife Dr. Smt. Ujjwala Tiwari, Tiwari gave his blessings and support to Narendra Modi and the BJP for the assembly elections held in the states of Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh in presence of BJP President Amit Shah in the name of development.