Veteran BJP leader and former Delhi CM Madan Lal Khurana dies

New Delhi: A veteran BJP leader and former Delhi Chief Minister Madan Lal Khurana passed away here on Saturday night, his family sources said.

The veteran BJP leader, among the tallest leaders of age of BJP in Delhi politics, passed away around 2300 hrs on Saturday night after a prolonged illness,family sources said.

He was 82 and is survived by his wife, a son and two daughters.

Khurana, along with Kedar Nath Sahani and Vijay Kumar Malhotra, kept the party in the reckoning in New Delhi for more than four decades from 1960 to 2000.

He was the Chief Minister of Delhi from 1993 until he resigned in 1996.

Considered close to the former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Khurana also served as the Union Minister of Parliamentary Affairs and Tourism in the Vajpayee government.

He also served as the Governor of Rajasthan from January 14 2004 to October 28 2004.

Born on 15 October 1936 in Lyallpur, Punjab Province in British India (now called Faisalabad in Punjab, Pakistan) to S.D. Khurana and Laxmi Devi, Khurana was barely 12 when the family was forced to migrate to Delhi by Partition.

Here he settled at a refugee colony Kirti Nagar in New Delhi. He took his bachelor’s degree from Kirori Mal College under Delhi University and a post-graduation in economics from Allahabad University.

He was general secretary of the Allahabad Students Union in 1959 and became general secretary of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad in 1960.

Khurana became a teacher with Vijay Kumar Malhotra, at PGDAV (evening) College before deciding to enter politics.

Madan Lal Khurana, Vijay Kumar Malhotra, Kedar Nath Sahani and Kanwar Lal Gupta founded the Delhi chapter of the Jan Sangh, which in 1980 transformed into BJP.

Khurana had to his credit winning as many as ten elections he contested in Delhi. A prominent mass leader, he was said to have been instrumental in more ways than one for BJP’s mass expansion in Delhi.

Khurana was the Jan Sangh’s general secretary from 1965 to 1967. He dominated first Municipal Corporation politics and then the Metropolitan Council where he was the Chief Whip, Executive Councillor and Leader of the Opposition by turns.

After the BJP suffered badly in 1984 general elections, held after the death of Indira Gandhi, Khurana is credited with reviving the party in New Delhi.

On August 20 2005, Khurana was removed from the BJP for indiscipline for publicly criticising BJP president Lal Krishna Advani and expressing inability and discomfort at serving with him.

On September 12 2005, he was taken back to the party and given back his responsibilities after he apologised about his remarks about the party’s leadership. (UNI)