Ex-Governor P Shiv Shankar Passes Away

Former Union minister and former Governor Punjala Shiv Shankar passed away at his Jubilee Hills residence on Monday morning. He was 88.

Shiv Shankar was born on August 10, 1929, and practised law and worked as a judge of the Andhra Pradesh High Court during 1974 and 1975.

A confidante of late Prime Ministers Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi, Shiv Shankar joined politics and was elected to the sixth Lok Sabha from Secunderabad in 1979, and retained the seat in 1980.

He was inducted into the Indira Gandhi cabinet in 1980 as Minister for Law and Justice.

In 1985, Shiv Shankar was elected to the Rajya Sabha from Gujarat, and remained in the upper house till 1993. He was Minister of External Affairs and Minister of Human Resource Development during these terms.

He was also Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission from 1987 to 1988. Later, he was Leader Of The House in the Rajya Sabha from 1988 to 1989.

He also served as the Leader Of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha during 1989 and 1991.

Shiv Shankar was sworn in as the Governor of Sikkim in 1994. He was thereafter Governor of Kerala from 1995 to 1996.

In the 1998 general elections, Shiv Shankar won the Tenali Lok Sabha seat defeating incumbent M P Sarada Tadiparthi of the Telugu Desam Party.

In 2004, he quit the Congress alleging that the party tickets were being sold in Andhra Pradesh. In 2008, he joined the Praja Rajyam Party formed by Telugu film actor Chiranjeevi.

AP and Telangana Governor E S L Narsimhan, the Chief Ministers of the Telugu states Chandrababu Naidu and K Chandrashekar Rao, Telangana BJP president K Laxman, TPCC leaders Uttam Kumar Reddy, Mallu Bhatti Vikramarkha and Ponnala Laxmaiah, YSRCP president Y S Jaganmohan Reddy and others expressed grief over the demise of Shiv Shankar and conveyed their heartfelt sympathies to the members of his family.

KCR instructed officials to make arrangements for an official funeral for the departed leader, who hails from the Telangana region.