By Arun Pratap Singh
Dehradun, 16 Apr: BJP member Rohit Shekhar, son of the late ND Tiwari, ex-UP and Uttarakhand Chief Minister, died today in New Delhi of cardiac arrest. Rohit Shekhar, aged 40, had reportedly complained of chest pain and was taken to Max Hospital in New Delhi, today, where he was declared brought dead by the doctors. He had reached Delhi from Haldwani just yesterday.
Shekhar’s death has been condoled by BJP State President Ajay Bhatt who has stated that the party had lost a capable budding leader. Chief Minister TS Rawat has also expressed grief at the untimely death.
The Delhi Police, however, claimed that the cause of death was yet to be ascertained and would be known only after a postmortem tomorrow. The Delhi Police have also registered a case under section 174 of the CrPC.
According to family sources, he was living in Delhi with his mother Ujjwala Sharma Tiwari. Shekhar had married Apoorva in May, last year. His father ND Tiwari, who was admitted to hospital for a long time, had died on 18 October, last year, after a prolonged illness. Tiwari was in the hospital when newlyweds Shekhar and Apoorva visited him to seek his blessings.
It may be recalled that Shekhar had to fight a long legal battle against his father, who had refused to publicly accept his paternity. A lawyer by profession, Shekhar had filed a paternity suit against ND, who had to undergo a DNA test on court orders despite huge resistance. The case had finally gone to the Supreme Court. Once the DNA test established that Shekhar was indeed his son, ND Tiwari relented and not only accepted Shekhar as as his son but also married his mother, Ujjawala Sharma in 2014. Shekhar was 35 then.
Once Tiwari publicly accepted Shekhar as his son, the father-son relationship became cordial and before he fell seriously ill, Tiwari tried to establish his son in politics. After Tiwari’s attempts to secure a Congress ticket for him failed, Shekhar joined the BJP in January 2017 before the Uttarakhand Assembly elections. However, he still failed to get the BJP ticket in the assembly elections and was largely ignored by the party. His political career never really took off and he was unable to benefit from the huge political legacy left behind by his father who was a four time Chief Minister of undivided Uttar Pradesh and also one time CM of Uttarakhand. Shekhar is survived by his wife, Apoorva, and mother Ujjawala Sharma Tiwari.
