Bengaluru: Veteran Congress leader and former railway minister CK Jaffer Sharief passed away at a private hospital in Bengaluru, on Sunday. He was 85.

Sharief was hospitalised after he collapsed while getting into the car to go to offer Namaz on Friday. Sharief was a former railways minister from 1991 to 1995 in the PV Narasimha Rao Cabinet.

Sharief  was admitted in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of Fortis Hospital on Cunningham Road in Bengaluru. Hospital reports had stated that Sharief’s pulse rate had dropped and was put on a temporary pacemaker.

It is said that the paramedical staff who accompany him all the time rushed him to the nearby Santosh Hospital after he fell from the car. He was initially admitted to Santhosh Hospital, but was later shifted to Fortis Hospital in Bengaluru.

Chief Minister Kumaraswamy paid a visit to the hospital and condoled the former minister's family. 

The doctors had advised Sharief to get a pacemaker two years ago, when he had complained of uneasiness in the chest.

He was also getting ready to release the Urdu translation of Moulana Abul Kalam Azad’s ‘India Wins Freedom’. For the release that was planned for November 28 at Palace Grounds, he had invited former President Pranab Mukherjee.

Congress has lost two leaders in the span of two days, as actor, former union minister Ambareesh passed away in Bengaluru on Saturday night, due to cardiac arrest.

On November 12, veteran BJP leader and Union minister Ananth Kumar had breathed his last after suffering from cancer.