Dr PC Alexander, veteran bureaucrat and former governor of Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu, passed away in Chennai on Wednesday morning. Ninety-year-old Alexander was ailing for thelast couple of months. The funeral will take place at his hometown of Mavelikkara on Saturday.
A 1948 batch officer of the IAS, Alexander had anexcellent career which ranged from that of a sub-collector to secretary to the Union government. Post retirement he was appointed as executive director of the United Nations International Trade Centre in Geneva.
Indira Gandhi appointed him as principal secretary in the prime minister’s office in 1981. He continued in the same post till 1985. He quit in 1985 following the infamous spy scandal featuring the likes of Coomar Narayan and leaking of certain sensitive files from the PMO.
But Rajiv Gandhi, the then prime minister, got him appointed as India’s High Commissioner to Great Britain in which post he continuedtill 1989. The PMO emerged as the country’s apex power centre during Alexander’s tenure as principal secretary.
Though Alexander submitted his resignation after the assassination of Indira Gandhi on October 31, 1984, Rajiv Gandhi asked him to continue as principal secretary.
Post retirement, Rajiv appointed him as governor of Tamil Nadu in 1988. In 1993he was appointed governor of Maharashtra by PV Narasimha Rao.
He continued in Mumbai Raj Bhavan till 2002.
By then Alexander was close to the National Democratic Alliance and his name was suggested as a possible presidential candidate by the BJP. But the Congress developed cold feet and Dr APJ Abdul Kalam was made president. An upset Alexander was placated by the Shiv Sena by nominating him to the Rajya Sabha in 2002 from Maharashtra.
He had written his autobiography Through the Corridors of Power.My Years with Indira Gandhi, The Perils of Democracy, India in the New Millennium were his other works.
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