Ram Prakash Gupta

Ram Prakash Gupta (26 October 1923 – 1 May 2004) was Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, and Governor of Madhya Pradesh. He was a leader of Bharatiya Janata Party, as well as its predecessor party, the Bharatiya Jana Sangh.

A post-graduate in science from Allahabad University, he was a member of the erstwhile Bharatiya Jana Sangh.

He represented the Bharatiya Jana Sangh in the Vidhan Parishad and was chosen to be Deputy Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh when Charan Singh formed the first non-Congress government in 1967 which was also known as Samyukta Vidhayak Dal government.

He was later the state's Minister of Industries in the Janata Party government led by Ram Naresh Yadav in 1977.

Following that short tenure, he was in relative obscurity, not even being nominated for the assembly elections in 1996, but being made the Deputy Chairperson of the Planning Commission in Uttar Pradesh.

The Chief Minister, Kalyan Singh, became embroiled in several controversies and was blamed for poor performance of the party in the Lok Sabha Elections in 1999. As a result, the party's leadership chose a low-profile Gupta over other contenders.[1]

In less than a year, Gupta ran into trouble when the party performed poorly in local body elections in the state and many called for his removal, which led to his replacement by Rajnath Singh on 8 October 2000.[2]

On 7 May 2003, he was named as the Governor of Madhya Pradesh.

After prolonged illness, he died while in office on 1 May 2004. He was survived by his wife and two sons and was cremated in Lucknow.[3]