Port Blair, Oct. 4: Shri. Ajoy Bairagi, State President, BJP, A & N Islands has condoled the sudden demise of Mr. Shakti Sinha, Former IAS Officer and a close aide of Former Prime Minister Mr. Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

Shri. Shakti Sinha served the Islands for two terms first as the Deputy Commissioner and then later as the Chief Secretary.

An IAS officer from 1979 batch, Mr. Sinha worked to establish two institutions - a think tank (Atal Bihari Vajpayee Institute of Policy Research and International Studies, at MS University, Vadodara) and an academic Institution of Excellence (Delhi School of Public Policy and Governance, University of Delhi).

The late scholar also authored a memoir of that period when he worked with Atal Bihari Vajpayee titled Vajpayee: The Years That Changed India. He was also the former Director of Nehru Memorial Library and Museum at Teen Murti.

Mr. Sinha also worked as the private secretary and then the joint secretary of the Prime Minister in the late 1990s. He was also one of the highly powerful officials at the Prime Minister's office during Former Prime Minister Mr. Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s tenure.

Bairagi has prayed to the Almighty for the departed soul to rest in peace and for giving strength to the bereaved family members to bear this irreparable loss.