Former Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Ajit Jogi passes away

Raipur, May 29, 2020

Chhattisgarh's first Chief Minister Ajit Jogi succumbed to a cardiac arrest in a hospital here on Friday, doctors said. He was 74.

Jogi suffered a cardiac arrest round 1.30 p.m. and doctors battled for over two hours to revive him, but were unsuccessful and he breathed his last around 3.30 p.m., said a medical bulletin from the Shree Narayana Hospital here.

The bureaucrat-turned-politician has been undergoing treatment at the hospital for more than three weeks and had been in an extremely criticla condition.

Jogi has been confined to a wheelchair since April 2004 following a near-fatal road accident.

Jogi became the first Chief Minister of Chhattisgarh when it was formed in November 2000. He led the Congress government till November 2003 when the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came to power after the first Assembly polls in the mineral-rich state.

Jogi quit the Congress in June 2016 and floated a regional party. He had largely been living in political isolation after the Congress stormed to power in state in 2018 and his bete noire Bhupesh Baghel became the Chief Minister of the state.

IANS