Congress leader VC Shukla passes away

Veteran Congress leader VC Shukla, who was grievously injured in a Maoist attack in Chattisgarh last month, died here in a private hospital, doctors said on Tuesday.

Shukla, 84, who was the main architect of media censorship during the emergency regime of former prime minister Indira Gandhi, died at around 2.30 p.m. in the Medanta Medicity Hospital.

A former union minister, he received three bullet injuries and lost a lot of blood in the attack on a Congress convoy in Chhattisgarh's Bastar region May 25. He was flown in an air ambulance to Delhi and taken to a private hospital in Gurgaon.

Shukla's father, Ravishankar Shukla, was the first chief minister of Madhya Pradesh. V.C. Shukla was inducted into the union cabinet in 1966 by Indira Gandhi.

His elder brother, S.C. Shukla, was also a former chief minister of Madhya Pradesh.