Lal Bahadur Shastri(Oct 2,1904 - Jan 11,1966)

Early Life
Shastri's father, Sharada Srivastava Prasad(was a school teacher and later  a clerk in the Revenue Office at Allahabad)died when he was only an year old.Shastri's mother, Ramdulari Devi, took him and his two sisters to her father's house and settled down there.

Shastri was educated at East Central Railway Inter college in Mughalsarai and Varanasi. He graduated with a first-class degree from the Kashi Vidyapeeth in 1926.

On 16 May 1928, Shastri married Lalita Devi of Mirzapur and had five children, including Hari Krishna Shashtri,Anil shastri and Sunil Shashtri, who were all Congress politicians.

Shastri, who belonged to the Kayastha Caste, dropped his surname Srivastava as it indicated his caste and he was against the caste system, a major principle of the Gandhian movement.

Shastri also enrolled himself as a life member of the Servants of the People Society and began to work for the upliftment of the Harijans under Gandhi's direction at Muzaffarpur and later became the President of the Society.

Indian Independence Struggle
Shastri participated in the ''Salt Satyagraha'' in 1930 and was imprisoned for two and a half years

Political Career
Following India's independence, Shastri was appointed Parliamentary Secretary in his home state, U.P.He became the Minister of Police and Transport under G B Pant's Chief Ministership on 15 Aug 1947 following Rafi Ahmed Kidwai's departure to become minister at centre.

As the Transport Minister, he was the first to appoint women conductors.

His tenure as police minister ( As Home Minister was called prior to 1950) saw successful curbing of communal riots in 1947, mass migration and resettlement of refugees and break-in and putting of idols in disputed Babri Masjid Ram Janmabhoomi complex on  Dec 22,1949.

In 1951, Shastri was made the General Secretary of the AICC and was directly responsible for the selection of candidates and the direction of publicity and electioneering activities. He played an important role in the landslide successes of the Congress Party in the General Elections held in 1952, 1957 and 1962.

Shastri was elected to Rajyasabha from Uttar Pradesh w.e.f. April 3,1952 and served as the Minister of Railways and Transport in the Central Cabinet from  May 13, 1952 to Dec 7, 1956 with Jawaharlal Nehru as the PM.

In Sep 1956, he offered his resignation after a railway accident at Mahabubnagar that led to 112 deaths. However, Nehru did not accept his resignation. Three months later, he resigned accepting moral and constitutional responsibility for a railway accident at Ariyalur,Tamilnadu that resulted in 144 deaths.

In 1957, Shastri returned to the cabinet following the General Elections, first as the Minister for Transport and Communications, and then as the Minister of Commerce and Industry^. In 1961, he became Minister for Home.

Jawaharlal Nehru died on May 27,1964 and Shastri becomes the PM of India on June 9,1964 and held the office till his death on Jan 11,1966

Death

• Prime Minister Shastri died in Tashkent due to a heart attack the day after signing the ''Tashkent Declaration'' on Jan 11,1966

• After Shastri's death in Tashkent, USSR, on 11 January 1966 soon after signing the Tashkent Pact with Pakistan, his wife LalitA Shastri had alleged he was poisoned.

• A query was later posed by Anuj Dhar, author of CIA's Eye on South Asia, under the Right to Information Act about his death but the government had refused to part with classified information on the issue. The Prime Minister's Office, while refusing information under the RTI Act on the cause and circumstances of Shastri's death, had said revealing these details could harm India's foreign relations and would violate Parliamentary Privilege.

• The government had admitted no postmortem was conducted on Shastri. However, his personal doctor RN Chugh and some Russian doctors conducted a medical examination. 

• The Russian butler attending on Shastri at the time of his death was arrested for suspected poisoning but released later as per the news source. It was maintained that Shastri had died of cardiac arrest but his family insisted he was poisoned. 

• Shastri was known for his honesty and humility throughout his life.

• Shastri was the first person to be posthumously awarded the Bharat Ratna in 1966

• A Memorial 'Vijay Ghat' was built in Delhi