JOIN USThe Assam Congress on Sunday lost one of it’s stalwarts. Six times Lok Sabha member and former Union minister Bijoy Krishna Handique passed away at the Jorhat Medical College Hospital on Sunday afternoon following brief illness. He was 81.
Handique, who was admitted to the JMC Hospital on Saturday, was in the ICU ever since. Born in 1934, the former Union minister is survived by his wife and three daughters.
Handique, who was elected the first time on a Congress ticket from Jorhat in 1991, went on to register six victory in six successive Lok Sabha polls only to be defeated in the 2014 Lok Sabha poll by BJP’s Kamakhya Prasad Tasa.
Handique was a veteran parliamentarian; he has been a member of Rajya Sabha from 1980 to 1986. Handique carried a huge legacy.
He was the only son of Krishna Kanta Handique, an internationally acclaimed Sanskrit scholar, indologist and philanthropist.
As a union minister, Handique had served as minister of state for defence and parliamentary affairs (2004-2007), chemicals and fertilisers (2006-2009) and later as minister of state first for mines and later for development of North-eastern region from 2009 to 2011 in the UPA governments under Manmohan Singh.