Former Karnataka Chief Minister S M Krishna passed away in the early hours of Tuesday. He was 92 years old. Krishna was also a former Governor of Maharashtra and was the foreign minister in the second UPA cabinet of Dr Manmohan Singh.

First elected to the Karnataka assembly in 1962 as an independent legislator he later joined the Praja Socialist Party before moving to the Congress in 1967. Krishna held most of the senior positions in the state including minister, Speaker, deputy CM and was the CM between 1999 to 2004.

A Fulbright scholar during his student days, he was a lawyer by training and it was during his tenure as the CM that Bengaluru became well known as a global hub for IT. Krishna wooed global industry to setup shop in the State. To involve industry titans in day-to-day governance he set up a task force headed by Nandan Nilekani of Infosys and amongst its members had the likes of Kiran Mazumdar Shaw of Biocon and others.

‘Oxford Gowda’

Hailing from the dominant land owning Vokkaliga community, S M Krishna was colloquially dubbed the ‘Oxford Gowda’ for his suave dressing sense and speaking mannerism. An avid tennis enthusiast, he surprised a number of people by crossing over to the BJP in 2017, cutting off his 50 year long association with Congress but retained friends and admirers across the political aisle.

Krishna was one of the few politicans who had the unique distinction at various times of being a member of the state assembly, Vidhan Parishat the upper house in the state as well as Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha. PM Modi, Karntaka CM Siddaramiah, former PM and Janata Dal leader Deve Gowda, former Karnataka CM’s Yediyurappa, Jagadish Shettar, D V Sadananda Gowda and H D Kumaraswamy have all condoled the death of the statesman.

He leaves behind wife Prema, daughters Malavika and Shambavi apart from several grandchildren.