Senior Congress leader and six-time MP from Amritsar Raghunandan Lal Bhatia passed away after a brief illness at a private hospital in Amritsar. He was 100.

He was first elected to the Lok Sabha in 1972 from the Amritsar parliamentary constituency, and again re-elected from the same seat in the 1980, 1985, 1992, 1996 and 1999 as a member of the Congress. Bhatia had also served as the Governor of Kerala from 2004 to 2008 and the governor of Bihar from 2008 to 2009. He had also served as the minister of state for external affairs in 1992.