Kewal Krishan was a medical practitioner and politician in Punjab

Punjab (India)

Punjab ) is a state in the northwest of the Republic of India, forming part of the larger Punjab region. The state is bordered by the Indian states of Himachal Pradesh to the east, Haryana to the south and southeast and Rajasthan to the southwest as well as the Pakistani province of Punjab to the...

, India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

. He was the Speaker

Speaker (politics)

The term speaker is a title often given to the presiding officer of a deliberative assembly, especially a legislative body. The speaker's official role is to moderate debate, make rulings on procedure, announce the results of votes, and the like. The speaker decides who may speak and has the...

 of the Punjab Legislative Assembly

Punjab Legislative Assembly

The Punjab Legislative Assembly or the Punjab Vidhan Sabha is the unicameral legislature of the state of Punjab in northern India. At present, it consists of 117 members, directly elected from 117 single-seat constituencies. The tenure of the legislative assembly is five years, unless sooner...

 (Vidhan Sabha

Vidhan Sabha

The Vidhan Sabha or the Legislative Assembly is the lower house or the sole house of the provincial legislature in the different states of India. The same name is also used for the lower house of the legislatures for two of the union territories, Delhi and Pondicherry...

).

He was first elected as an Indian National Congress

Indian National Congress

The Indian National Congress is one of the two major political parties in India, the other being the Bharatiya Janata Party. It is the largest and one of the oldest democratic political parties in the world. The party's modern liberal platform is largely considered center-left in the Indian...

member of the Punjab Legislative Assembly in 1969, becoming Speaker 1973-77 and again 2002 onwards. He served as Minister of Finance in the Punjab Government 1980-83.

In 2005, he led an Assembly delegation on a goodwill visit to the Punjab Assembly in Pakistan.

In January 2006 he announced his intention of standing down as an MLA, saying ‘‘I am 83 and have played my innings in politics. I do not want to continue till 90. Now the time has come for the younger generation to take the reins.” He died on 30 June 2008, of a heart attack.