Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Friday said that party stalwart, the late Oommen Chandy was not an individual, but an expression of Kerala politics and that he “killed himself” for the people of the state despite facing one of the most brutal unfair political attacks.
Rahul, speaking after inaugurating a memorial meeting to mark the second death anniversary of Chandy, a former Chief Minister, termed the political attack on the Congress stalwart as “criminal”.
“Non-stop lies were told about him (Chandy),” the Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha said in an apparent reference to the multi-crore solar scam.
Three of Chandy’s office staff were accused of being involved in the alleged duping of several persons of crores of rupees by a woman and her male accomplice by offering solar panel solutions.
The woman had also accused Chandy and some other senior Congress leaders, including K C Venugopal, of sexually exploiting her.
However, all of them were given clean chit by the CBI which probed her allegations.
Rahul said that he regularly spoke to Chandy while the latter was facing these allegations, but the Congress stalwart never spoke angrily about anybody.
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“He was always balanced, always humble and always working for the interests of the people of the state.” He said that he learned a lot from Chandy and it was his aspiration to develop more and more people like the Congress stalwart as Kerala has a “tradition” of such persons.
“He was not just an individual, but an expression of Kerala politics. I have literally seen him kill himself for the people of the state,” the Congress MP from Rae Bareli (Uttar Pradesh) said.
Rahul also termed Chandy as a “master of political feeling”.
Earlier in the day, he paid tribute to Chandy at his grave at the St George Church, Puthuppally here.
The Congress leader laid flowers and lit a candle at Chandy’s grave and prayed before it.
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Subsequently, he visited the church and proceeded to the venue of the memorial meeting.
As part of the programme, Rahul handed over the keys to 12 newly built houses for the poor, constructed by the Oommen Chandy Foundation, and launched a new charitable initiative named ‘Smrititharangam’.
