New Delhi: Krishan Kant, who died in New Delhi on July 27 days before he was to demit office of Vice-President, was a veteran freedom fighter, a staunch socialist and a strong votary of poll reforms.

Born on February 28, 1927, in Kot Mohammed Khan village of Amritsar district, Kant obtained an M Sc from Benaras Hindu University and started his career as a scientist with the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research.

He was a member of Rajya Sabha from 1966 to 1977 and made his mark as a Young Turk, championing the cause of radical and progressive politics in the company of other members of the group, former Prime Minister Chandrashekhar, Mohan Dharia and Ram Dhan.

He was expelled from the Congress in 1975 for his opposition to the Emergency. He was later a member of Lok Sabha till 1980.

A strong protagonist of India going nuclear, Krishan Kant was a member of the executive council of the Institute of Defence Studies and Analysis.

Krishan Kant was the founding general secretary of the Peoples' Union of Civil Liberties and Democratic Rights, of which Jayprakash Narayan was the president in 1976.

He was instrumental in the release of Naxalites after the formation of Janata government in 1977, when Communist party of India – Marxist-Leninist (CPI-ML) general secretary Satyanarain Singh came over ground at his residence in New Delhi.

He was also associated with the anti-liquor movement which engulfed Andhra Pradesh in the early '90s resulting in the imposition of dry laws in the state after N T Rama Rao won a landslide victory in 1994.

With his commitment to rid politics of the influence of "big money", Krishan Kant became a strong votary of electoral reforms and in Ahmedabad session of Congress in 1971, following the party split, he made a strong plea for linking politics with the people and their basic problems.

Kant's first brush with politics came when he plunged into the Quit India movement, while he was still a student in Lahore.

He was appreciative of the concerns of extremists though he disagreed with their method of violence. He met important Sikh extremists in Punjab to understand their point of view and was one of the first to raise the issue of Pakistani interference in Punjab and the need for a national approach to solve the problem.

Kant was appointed Governor of Andhra Pradesh by the V P Singh government in 1989 and served in that position for seven years till he was elevated as Vice- President.

A connoisseur of Urdu poetry, he was also a prolific writer and contributed extensively to prominent dailies and periodicals on issues relating to national and international politics, culture and science.

His father, Lala Achint Ram, was a member of the constituent Assembly and later an MP, while his wife Suman is a social activist.

PTI