Former Union minister Raghuvansh Prasad Singh died on Sunday due to post-Covid complications. He was 74. Raghuvansh Prasad Singh died around 11 am due to breathlessness and other complications, said Kedar Yadav, a close aide of the septuagenarian.

The body of the 74-year-old leader will be brought to Patna for performance of the last rites, the aide said. Singh had fallen critically ill late Friday night and was put on a ventilator in ICU in the AIIMS, Yadav added.

Earlier in June he had tested positive for Covid and was admitted at AIIMS Patna. He was taken to AIIMS in the national capital recently following post Covid complications.

Condoling his death, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said, “Raghuvansh Prasad Singh’s demise has left a void in the political sphere of Bihar as well as the country.”

Raghuvansh Prasad Singh’s recent resignation from the RJD, founded and headed by Lalu Prasad, left political waters in Bihar astir.

Singh resigned from the primary membership of the party on Thursday and followed it up with an open letter, a day later, addressed to Prasad's arch rival and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, triggering speculations about his future moves.

A staunch loyalist of the RJD supremo whom he supported in thick and thin, Singh ran afoul with the party a few months ago when murmurs about mafia don turned politician Rama Singh, his rival in Vaishali Lok Sabha constituency, led him to resign from the post of the national vice-president.

A cabinet colleague of Prasad in the Manmohan Singh government, Singh thereby stymied Rama Singhs entry into the party and although he did not give up the primary membership at that time, he stayed away from the RJDs day to day affairs which was attributed, in part, to his ill-health.