Verma

New Delhi, June 30: Former Delhi chief minister Sahib Singh Verma was killed in a road accident today when the car he was travelling in collided with a mini-truck in Alwar, Rajasthan.

The BJP leader was on his way to the capital when the accident took place in Khandwamor, 120km from Delhi, around 2.30 in the afternoon.

Verma was 64 and is survived by his wife, two sons and three daughters.

Police said Verma’s driver and another person travelling in the car also died. His security officer, who suffered serious injuries, and the driver of the truck have been hospitalised.

Born on March 15, 1943, Verma had replaced former BJP stalwart Madan Lal Khurana as chief minister in 1995 after the party suddenly felt the need to reach out to the non-Punjabi constituency, comprising Jats and Other Backward Classes. Verma was chosen because he was a Jat from outer Delhi, one of the country’s largest Lok Sabha seats.

His tenure was marked by the “onion crisis”, when prices of onion skyrocketed, and power and water shortages. Before the November 1998 polls, the BJP replaced him with Sushma Swaraj to salvage the situation. The gambit failed and the expected blame game saw Khurana getting eclipsed while Verma stayed afloat.

Verma later became labour minister in the NDA government and was famously described by some bureaucrats as a “bull in a china shop” after he openly berated them for questioning his decision to keep the 9.5 per cent interest rate for EPF contributions.

In 2004, Verma lost the Lok Sabha election and, since then, had been lying low.