CHANDIGARH: Congress MP Santokh Singh Chaudhary, 76, died on Saturday morning after suffering a cardiac arrest during the Bharat Jodo Yatra. Chaudhary had joined the Rahul Gandhi-led yatra at Phillaur, but felt uneasiness after some time and collapsed.
He was rushed to a nearby hospital where doctors declared him dead. “I was walking ahead with Rahul Gandhi and my father was a little behind when I came to know he fell down.
We rushed him to the hospital in the ambulance but he died,” said his son Vikramjit Singh Chaudhary, Congress MLA from Phillaur. Following the tragedy, Congress suspended the yatra for a day as a mark of respect for the deceased party MP. Rahul Gandhi visited the hospital and later the MP’s grieving family in Jalandhar.
“Shocked by the sudden demise of Santokh Singh Chaudhary. He was a hard-working and down-to-earth gentleman. A strong pillar of the Congress family, he dedicated his life to public service from the Youth Congress to a member of Parliament,” Rahul said in a tweet in Hindi.
Chaudhary, a Dalit leader, belonged to a family of politicians. His father Master Gurbanta Singh was a former Punjab agriculture minister and his elder brother Chaudhary Jagjit Singh a local bodies minister.