By IANS
Ahmedabad : Former Gujarat assembly speaker Dhirubhai Shah, who has been ill since suffering a heart attack at his daughter’s wedding in January 2005, died at his residence here Tuesday. He was 56.
Shah, elected speaker in March 1998, had been in coma intermittently for three long years. He was the youngest speaker in Gujarat when he took charge in March 1998.
A leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), he was appointed chairman of the Gujarat Finance Commission in November 2003.
On Jan 29, 2005, he suffered the heart attack at his younger daughter’s wedding and slipped into coma. He showed occasional signs of improvement but never recovered fully.
Born into a Jain family in Bela village of Gujarat’s Kutch district, Shah was a lawyer by profession.