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Former Union minister Vazhappadi K Ramamurthy died of a heart attack in a Chennai hospital on Sunday evening.
He was 62 and is survived by wife, two sons and daughter.
Ramamurthy was the only president of the Tamil Nadu Congress Committee to have served for five continues years in the post-Kamaraj era. He did so when P V Narasimha Rao was prime minister and party president.
He entered politics through the trade union movement. He contested the 1980 Lok Sabha polls with the blessings of then All India Congress Committee general secretary G K Moopanar.
He took over from Moopanar as Tamil Nadu Congress Committee president after the latter failed to deliver the state to the Congress in the 1989 assembly polls.
Former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi wanted a state unit chief who would be acceptable to All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam leader J Jayalalithaa ahead of the Lok Sabha polls that year, and Ramamurthy was perfect. The same Ramamurthy went on to dub Jayalalithaa the "BJP's mouthpiece" when she began hobnobbing with the party at the height of the Ayodhya row in 1992.
In 1993, he asked Congressmen to hoist black flags to protest against Narasimha Rao's participation in the World Tamil Conference organised by the AIADMK government at Thanjavur.
Later, he walked out of the Congress with Arjun Singh and N D Tiwari to float the Tiwari (Congress)
He rejoined the Congress in 1997, but only to leave it and float his own outfit, the Tamizhaga Rajiv Congress, on the eve of 1998 Lok Sabha polls. He aligned with the Bharatiya Janata Party-AIADMK combine and was elected to the Lok Sabha from Salem.
He reached the pinnacle of his career when he became the petroleum minister in the Vajpayee government.
Despite requests from Jayalalithaa, who had withdrawn support to Vajpayee government in 1999, he continued to serve at the Centre. He lost in the 1999 Lok Sabha polls and following a call by Congress president Sonia Gandhi, merged his party with the Congress in January 2001.
His claim for the TNCC presidentship was overlooked by the high command after the Tamil Maanila Congress, floated by G K Moopanar, merged with Congress in August 2001.
With inputs from PTI
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