Former Union minister and veteran Congress leader B Shankaranand died at a private hospital here in the wee hours on Friday following cardiac arrest, family sources said. Shankaranand, 84 leaves behind two sons and five daughters.

A Gandhi family loyalist, he was an eight time Lok Sabha MP from Chikkodi Reserved Constituency. Shankaranand had served in the ministries headed by Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi and PV Narasimha Rao. He also headed the Parliamentary Committee that probed the controversial Bofors issue.