CHANDIGARH: The 109-year-old Shobha Nehru, great grandaunt of Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi, died on Tuesday in Kausali in Himachal Pradesh.
Shobha was the wife of former Indian diplomat BK Nehru. She passed away at her residence in Kasauli on Monday morning owing to age-related complications, her family said.
Members of the Gandhi family are expected to attend her cremation in Kausali on Wednesday.
She was married to first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s cousin BK Nehru in 1935 after she met him at Oxford University as a student. Nehru, who was the Indian Ambassador to the US was the same diplomat who nearly succeeded Dag Hammarskjold as United Nations Secretary General. She is survived by three sons and was born in Budapest in Hungary.
Rahul Gandhi used to regularly visit his great grand aunt in this quiet hill station of Himachal Pradesh. He visited her in May last year.
BK Nehru, who was one of the most distinguished civil servants of post-independent India had died at the age of 92, on October 31, 2001.