Head of Travancore royal family dies at 91

The cremation was held on the premises of the family palace Monday afternoon with state honours.

Uthradam Tirunal Marthanda Varma,head of the erstwhile royal family of Travancore,died here in the early hours of Monday. He was 91.

The cremation was held on the premises of the family palace Monday afternoon with state honours.

Varma was the younger brother of the last king of Travancore,Chithira Tirunal Balarama Varma and assumed as the head of the royal family in 1991 when his brother died.

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He was the main trustee of Sree Padmanabhaswamy Temple,which was recently in the news after a treasure worth Rs 1 lakh crore was discovered there. As the head of the royal family Varma used to worship there every morning.

He remained detached from the controversies surrounding the recovery of the treasure,though he was sad that the temples wealth had been dragged into a legal battle.

A graduate in economics,history and Sanskrit,Varma established an industrial unit in Bangalore in 1952 and returned to Thiruvananthapuram in 1991 after his brothers death. Last month,when Prince Charles visited Kerala,Varma was one of the people he met.

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