Patil was criticised for his statements whenever terrorist strikes took place and he especially came under media scrutiny for his sartorial fetish on the day serial bomb blasts hit Delhi in September this year.

Born at Chakur in Latur district on October 12, 1935, Patil was educated at Osmania University and Bombay University. After graduating in Science, he completed LLM and practised Law.

Patil had risen to the post of the Speaker of the Lok Sabha when the P V Narasimha Rao government was in power between 1991 and 1996.

He was first elected to the Latur Municipality as its President in 1967. He became a Member of the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly in 1972 and presided over the House as its Speaker from 1978 to 1979.

Patil was elected to the Lok Sabha for the first time in 1980 and was appointed Union Minister of State for Defence in the Indira Gandhi government the same year.

During his political career, he held a number of portfolios including those of Commerce, Science and Technology, Atomic Energy and Tourism and Civil Aviation.

A voracious reader, Patil has also written a book titled 'Reminiscences and Reflections'.

Too little, too late, says BJP

Dubbing the resignation of Home Minister Shivraj Patil as ‘too little too late’, the BJP, which had been gunning for him over a spate of terror attacks in the country, today said that the whole government had "failed" and should quit.

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