’84 riots accused Bhagat dies

Bhagat, who came to Delhi after the Partition, become one of the most powerful Congress leaders in 80s and 90s. He was close to former Prime Ministers Indira Gandhi and Rajiv.

Bhagat who had Alzheimers’ disease and lost much memory and eyesight in the recent years, fought his first election in Delhi in 1952 to become MLA in the Delhi Assembly.

In 1962, he became a corporator from Timarpur after the Assembly was dissolved and later Deputy Mayor. He remained DPCC president in the 70s and general secretary of the AICC. He won his first Lok Sabha election in 1971.

The first blow came in 1977 when he lost the elections after being part of Sanjay Gandhi’s five-member implementation committee in the pre-Emergency days. He won in 1980 and became Information and Broadcasting Minister. His contemporaries remember his tenure for commissioning Ramanand Sagar’s serial Ramayan, often blamed for the rise of the BJP.

In 1984, he won again and became minister for housing and later for parliamentary affairs. He won again in 1989 but had to sit in the Opposition. His fall from grace began in the 90s with losses in elections and a loss of grip on the party. Besides, he became embroiled in allegations of involvement in the 1984 anti-Sikh riots. The riots continued to haunt him till the end. In 1991, he lost the Lok Sabha elections and in 1996, the party denied him a ticket. He turned a rebel and fought against his own dummy candidate. He got nearly two lakh votes but lost to the BJP candidate.

The next blow from the party came in 1993 and 2003 when the Congress denied his son a ticket for the Assembly elections. DPCC chief Ram Babu Sharma who was in the Bhagat camp for long, remembers him for his services to Delhi. ‘‘He took PM Indira Gandhi to the Yamuna in 1978 and masterminded the development work there,’’ he said.