Venkataraman passed away at 2.30 pm, Brig A K Sharma, administrative head of the Army Research and Referral Hospital, said. Venkataraman died today at age 98 after prolonged illness.

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Venkataraman was born Dec 4, 1910, in Rajamedam in Thanjavur district in Tamil Nadu. He had his education in Chennai, obtaining a law degree from Law College. He married Janaki in 1938 and they had three daughters. He practiced law at the high court and the Supreme Court. He took part in the Quit India movement of 1942 and was jailed for two years.

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Later, he specialised in industrial relations law and edited the Labour Law Journal in Chennai. It was his interest in labour issues that brought him into politics.

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Venkataraman became a member of the Constituent Assembly and was elected to the first Lok Sabha in 1952. He became secretary of the Congress Parliamentary Party in 1953. In 1957 he returned to Chennai and spent the next 10 years as a minister in the state government.

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Venkataraman's tenure in the Rashtrapati Bhavan - from July 25, 1987, to July 25, 1992 - passed through one of the most challenging periods in the country's politics. Aside from the instability of having three governments in as many years, it was a period of turmoil with the self-immolations against the Mandal Commission report, the violence during Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader L.K. Advani's Rath Yatra and the 1991 assassination of Rajiv Gandhi.

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In 1984, he became vice president of India for three years before being elected as president in 1987.