New Delhi: Veteran Congress leader and four-time Gujarat Chief Minister Madhavsinh Solanki passed away at the age of 94 early Saturday morning. Solanki also served as a former External Affairs minister.
A lawyer by profession, Solanki rose to power on the KHAM (Kshatriya, Harijan, Adivasi, Muslim) formula that he stitched in the 1980s, shifting the power balance from Patel-Brahmins-Baniyas to OBCs and Dalits.
Solanki served a brief stint as the Gujarat CM in 1977 and again rose to power in the 1980 Assembly election where Congress won by a landslide margin. As a chief minister, Madhavsinh Solanki tabled the reservation for socially and economically backward classes.
He resigned in 1985 but later again returned as the CM, winning 149 out of 182 assembly seats, where BJP won only nine.