VC Shukla succumbs to Maoist bullet injuries

Veteran Congress leader Vidya Charan Shukla, who had received three bullet injuries during Naxal attack in Chhattisgarh, on May 25, passed away on Tuesday. Shukla was airlifted from Raipur and admitted to Medanta Mediciti Hospital in Gurgaon on May 26, a day after the attack which eliminated almost the entire top leadership of Chhattisgarh unit of Congress.

Many Congress leaders including Mahendra Karma, chief of Salwa Judum, were killed when the heavily-armed Maoists ambushed the Congress convoy when the leaders were returning from party's Parivartan rally in Sukma in Chhattisgarh's Bastar region. Doctors earlier had informed that the 84-year-old former union minister was unable to breathe easily and was kept on ventilator. Multi-organ failure, severe bullet injuries and old age were major risk factors in his case, the hospital said.

Shukla, former Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh, was the main architect of media censorship during the Emergency regime of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi when he was the Information and Broadcasting Minister in the Union Cabinet. While Shukla's father, Ravishankar Shukla, was the first chief minister of Madhya Pradesh, his elder brother, SC Shukla, also headed the government of that State.