Patna: Former Bihar chief minister Satyendra Narayan Sinha died on Monday morning, family sources said. He was 89.
Sinha, a seven-time Lok Sabha member, breathed his last at 0740 hrs (IST). He is survived by his wife and former MP Kishori Sinha and son Nikhil Kumar, sitting MP from Aurangabad and former Delhi police commissioner.
Nikhil Kumar's wife is also a former MP.
Popularly known as Chhote saheb, Sinha was ailing for the last few years and his condition had deteriorated since he suffered two strokes in May this year.
Sinha - son of former Bihar strongman and minister, Anugrah Narain Sinha - was born at Koima village in Bihar's Aurangabad district on July 12, 1997.
Securing bachelors degree from Allahabad University in 1939, he became a law graduate from Lucknow University in 1940.
He became a member of the first Lok Sabha from Aurangabad in 1952. He represented the seat seven times. Sinha was a cabinet minister in Bihar's Binodanand Jha government in 1961 and then in the K B Sahay ministry in 1963.
He was also a member of the Bihar assembly thrice where he represented Nabinagar twice and Gopalganj once. Sinha's crowning glory came when he became the chief minister of Bihar in 1989 in the aftermath of a revolt by state Congressmen against the incumbent Chief Minister Bhagwat Jha Azad for his 'autocratic' style of functioning.
However, the same year he saw a new low in the state and his impressive career when communal riots broke out at Bhagalpur in which over 1000 people were killed.
The riots are widely believed to have caused the alienation of Muslims from Congress in the state where it lost power to Janata Dal the very next year.
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