Sharad Yadav's last rites to be performed in MP village on Saturday

The last rites of veteran socialist leader and former Janata Dal-United president Sharad Yadav will take place at his ancestral village in Madhya Pradesh's Narmadapuram district on Saturday, his close associate said in Bhopal on Friday.

The former Union minister died on Thursday at a private hospital in Gurugram at the age of 75.

Former JD-U Madhya Pradesh unit head and a close associate of Sharad Yadav, Govind Yadav, said the veteran politician's last rites will be performed at his ancestral village Ankhmau in Babai tehsil of Narmadapuram (formerly Hoshangabad) district on Saturday afternoon.

"The mortal remains of Yadav will be brought from Delhi to Madhya Pradesh by a chartered plane at 11 am and taken to his ancestral village Ankhmau by road. The last rites will be at 1:30 pm," he told PTI.

The last rites will be performed by Sharad Yadav's son Shantanu Bundela, the late politician's nephew, Shailesh Yadav, informed.

After starting out as a student leader, Sharad Yadav's Lok Sabha byelection victory from Jabalpur in MP in 1974 as opposition candidate against then ruling Congress catapulted him into national politics.

In his long political career, the former Union minister won Lok Sabha elections seven times, was a Rajya Sabha MP four times and also served in Cabinets of Prime Ministers V P Singh and Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

Besides Jabalpur, he won Lok Sabha polls from Budaun in Uttar Pradesh and Madhepura in Bihar, which was a rare achievement for any politician.