Congress leader VC Shukla latest victim of Maoist attack

NEW DELHI: Congress leader VidyaCharanShukla, grievously injured in the May 25 Maoist attack in Chhattisgarh, died on Tuesday. A former Union minister, he was shot in his chest, abdomen and thigh and had lost a lot of blood in the attack.


He was flown in an air ambulance to Delhi and taken to a private hospital. A senior Congress general secretary recalled how he was surprised by the enthusiasm that Shukla showed recently in visiting Maoisthit areas. The 84-year-old leader was irked by the fact that the general secretary didn’t inform him of his visit. “But sir I was going to a dangerous zone. It was core Naxal area,” the leader recounted telling the octogenarian. Shukla ended the argument: “But that is not your problem. I would have liked to come along.”

After Shukla was shot, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi personally called the Air Chief to arrange for an air ambulance to lift Shukla from Jagdalpur to Raipur for medical care. He was transported to Medanta Medicity where Gandhi checked on him frequently. Shukla has worked with three generations and five members of the Gandhi family. He is remembered as the architect of media censorship during the 1975-77 Emergency slapped by then PM Indira Gandhi. He drew a lot of flak when he banned a film Kissa Kursi Ka, one of the first political spoofs on corrupt netas.

His father, Ravishankar Shukla, was the first CM of MP. VC Shukla was inducted into the Cabinet in 1966 by Indira. His elder brother, SC Shukla, was also a CM of MP. Elected to LS nine times, the first time as early as in 1957 from Mahasamund in the undivided MP, Shukla held key portfolios at the Centre, including communications, parliamentary affairs, water resources and external affairs. Shukla’s role as I&B minister during the Emergency had got him some odium as propagandist for Indira’s government. During the Emergency, he banned the songs of Kishore Kumar from AIR and Doordarshan because he had once refused to perform at a Congress rally in Mumbai.

He joined the revolt against Rajiv Gandhi in the mid 80s and was one of the founders of VP Singh-headed Jan Morcha. Later, he became a minister in the National Front government of 1989-90 under Singh and switched allegiance to join the Chandrasekhar government. He returned to Congress and became a minister in the PV Narasimha Rao government, only to leave it once again when he was not made CM of newly-formed Chhattisgarh. He had a brief stint with BJP and lost an LS poll from his pocket borough before returning to Congress.