ND Tiwari passes away: 7 facts you didn't know about former UP CM

Born on October 18, 1925, Tiwari was jailed at the age of 17 while participating in the freedom struggle. While he dabbled with socialism in 1952, he joined the Congress in 1963. He would go on to be elected nine times to the UP assembly, became president of Indian Youth Congress and a minister of UP in 1969.

He has the distinction of being the only Indian politician who served as the Chief Minister of two Indian states. He also had a colourful career marred by astonishing sex scandals including one when he was caught in 2009 with three women in bed in Hyderabad Raj Bhavan when he was serving as Governor of the state.

It was the final nail in the coffin of a leader who nursed prime ministerial ambitions and lost out to PV Narasimha Rao in the scramble after Rajiv Gandhi’s death in 1991. 

One of Congress’ tallest leaders, he left active politics in 2009. During his chequered career, he held several key positions spanning five decades. A topper in law from Allahabad University, he held several portfolios including finance, external affairs, industries, defence and also was the deputy chairman of the Planning Commission.

In 1976, he became the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh for the first time. Two more stints followed in the 1980s. They were all brief, truncated terms but he will be remembered for being the last Congress chief minister of the populous, politically important state.

At the Centre, Tiwari served as deputy chairperson of the Planning Commission. Over the years, he also held portfolios of planning, finance, petroleum and external affairs in the Union Cabinet.

He was the first CM of Uttarakhand in 2002 before becoming Governor of Andhra Pradesh in 2007. Two years later, a news channel’s salacious break all but ended his career.

He served as a minister in Indira Gandhi’s government in 1980 and also in her son Rajiv Gandhi’s cabinet. He was elected thrice to Lok Sabha and twice to Rajya Sabha. He splintered from the Congress and formed the All India Indira Congress (Tiwari) following disagreements with PVN Rao and took other important leaders like Arjun Singh, K Natwar Singh and Rangrajan Kumaramangalam with him. The party was merged with the Congress when Sonia Gandhi took over.

Tiwari is credited with helping Uttarakhand, formed just two years before he took charge, gain a firm footing.

His rapport with his opposition colleagues is said to have got Uttarakhand an industrial package from the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government at the Centre, which was crucial for the state's early development. He then wooed industrialists.

Bajaj Auto chairman Rahul Bajaj once said, "The plant we set up in Pantnagar was only at Tiwari ji's request. We could not say no to him." In 2007, he accepted the governorship of Andhra Pradesh. 

He also hit the news when one Rohit Shekhar petitioned the Delhi High Court in 2008 claiming he was ND Tiwari’s son and sought a paternity test to prove his claim.

The test results which came out in 2012 showed Rohit was ND Tiwari’s biological son and he would later marry his mother Ujjwala Tiwari in 2014 as an 88-year-old.

His biggest controversy definitely came in 2009 when a Telugu channel aired footage of the almost nonagenarian politician with three women in Hyderabad’s Raj Bhavan. This had led TDP president and current Andhra CM N Chandrababu Naidu to demand his immediate resignation.

The private channel had to stop airing the video after it was ordered by a court to do so but not before the dirty laundry was aired in public for over an hour.

Raj Bhavan had denied footage and issued a statement: “The Governor is 86 years old and in the evening of his life. It is sad and unfortunate that constitutional functionaries are dragged in to needless controversies.” Despite claims that it was ‘fake’, that was the final nail in his political career.

Though, he did re-surface in 2017 when it was said that he along with his wife and son had joined the BJP in 2017.

The news came as quite a shock, given Tiwari’s long innings with Congress but later the BJP clarified that only his only his son Rohit Shekhar had joined the party. The incident occurred right before the 2017 Uttarakhand assembly elections.

Rohit Shekhar, who was part of Congress had said: "Have you in the last seven to eight years seen any Congress leader who's had the decency to come and meet my father, to ask how he's doing at least? Have you seen my father's face on any political hoarding?

While Tiwari didn’t join the party, he did give them their blessings. It was his last political act and pundits will probably wonder what could’ve been if Tiwari had exhibited a little more inhibition in his private affairs.