JOIN USVeteran politician Khurshed Alam Khan, former Karnataka governor and father of External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid, passed away on Saturday morning in the capital.
The 95-year-old former Union Minister, who served under prime ministers Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi, breathed his last around 3 am at a private hospital where he was admitted for the past six days after complaining of chest pain.
He already had a major problem of Aortic Stenosis, a disease of the heart valves, said Dr T S Kler, Executive Director of Cardiac Sciences Department in Escorts Hospital.
Khurshed, who was Karnataka governor for eight years between 1991 and 1999, was a Member of Parliament for 15 years. He was in the Rajya Sabha from 1974 to 1984 and then got elected to the Lok Sabha, from where he resigned in 1989 to become Goa governor. He was shifted to Karnataka in 1991.
The son-in-law of former President Zakir Hussain, Khan was responsible for the creation of Jamia Milia Islamia as an independent university through a Parliamentary law. He held various portfolios — External Affairs, Tourism, Civil Aviation, Textiles and Commerce — in the Union Council of Ministers. In a condolence message, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said Khan’s death was an “irreparable loss”, and that “his leadership in India's foreign policy, education system and legislative affairs contributed immensely to the country's modern, liberal and democratic polity”.