Former BJP president Bangaru Laxman passed away on Saturday at a private hospital in Secunderabad after suffering from lung ailments.
He is survived by wife, a son and three daughters. He was the BJP president between 2000 and 2001 and the minister of state for Railways in the A B Vajpayee government during 1999-2000. Laxman was jailed during Emergency in 1975. He was nominated to the Rajya Sabha in 1996. Later, he represented the Jalore Lok Sabha constituency in Rajasthan.
A sting operation by Tehelka shook his political life. He had to resign as the party president in the wake of a nationwide outrage. The sting caught him accepting Rs 1 lakh as bribe.
The 74-year-old Dalit politician from Andhra Pradesh was convicted by a special CBI court on April 27, 2012, for taking bribe under the Prevention of Corruption Act and sentenced to four years in jail. He was granted bail by Justice A K Pathak against a bond of Rs 50, 000.
In his last interview with Deccan Herald on former Tehelka editor Tarun Tejpal’s sexual harassment case, an ailing Laxman said: “What a fall, people who pretend to be righteous, stoop down to such low levels, immoral methods and practices in name of exposing corruption.”
“Nobody can hide under the burqa for long,” he said from his hospital bed in Secunderabad last November.
Senior BJP leader M Venkaiah Naidu and TDP chief Chandrababu Naidu expressed condolences on his death.