New Delhi: Former prime minister IK Gujral's funeral will take place on Saturday at 3 pm in the national capital. Gujral passed away on Friday evening after a prolonged illness. He was 92.
The Union Cabinet has declared a seven-day state mourning as a mark of respect Gujral. A Cabinet meeting attended by Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde, Finance Minister P Chidambaram, Defence Minister AK Antony and New and Renewable Energy Minister Farooq Abdullah among others condoled the death of Gujral.
Expressing profound sorrow, the Cabinet also passed a resolution. "The Cabinet expresses profound sorrow at the sad demise
of Gujral, the former Prime Minister of India. In his death, India has lost a great patriot, a visionary leader and a freedom fighter," the resolution said.
The tricolour will remain at half mast during the mourning period. "The Cabinet places on record its deep sense of grief at
the passing away of Gujral and extends its sincere condolences on behalf of the entire nation to the bereaved family," the resolution added.
Gujral, a quintessential old-school politician who rose to become Prime Minister heading a rickety coalition government in the late 1990s, died in Gurgaon after a brief illness. The 92-year-old Left-leaning liberal breathed his last in a private hospital after a multi-organ failure, family sources said. He was admitted to the hospital on November 19 with a lung infection. In four days, he would have turned 93.
The former Prime Minister, who was on ventilator support, was unwell for sometime. He was on dialysis for over a year and suffered a serious chest infection some days ago. Gujral leaves two sons, one of whom Naresh Gujral is a Rajya Sabha MP and an Akali Dal leader, and brother Satish Gujral, who is a prominent painter and architect. His wife Sheila, who died in 2011, was a poet.
President Pranab Mukherjee, Vice President Hamid Ansari, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar, Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, Union Ministers and political leaders were among those who paid glowing tributes to the late leader.
With Additional Inputs from PTI
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