BENGALURU: Senior Congress leaders in the state on Tuesday paid tributes to former president Pranab Mukherjee, who passed away on Monday, and reminisced on their association with him.“He was Congress’ troubleshooter and always took responsibility to resolve any crisis faced by the party,” former CM Siddaramaiah said, adding that Mukherjee had given him suggestions when he met him after joining the Congress, and also after he became CM.
Rajya Sabha member Mallikarjun Kharge too recalled his association with Mukherjee from when they were campaigning for Indira Gandhi in 1978. “He had visited Kalaburagi twice and suggested that we start a Pali Institute at Buddha Vihar. When we informed him that it is difficult to get Pali language teachers, he even offered to send them from West Bengal,” he said.
Kharge, however, added he was always curious about the reasons for the former president’s visit to RSS headquarters in Nagpur in 2018, but never got an opportunity to ask him.Former Union minister K H Muniyappa recounted that Mukherjee, as a minister in the UPA government, had supported the request to reopen KGF.
Senior Congress leader and MLC B K Hariprasad recalled a time when he and Mukherjee had visited Rajnagar subdivision in Mahakalapada area of Odisha, which was hit by a cyclone in 1999. The Karnataka government under SM Krishna had adopted the subdivision.
“We were visiting the place to oversee the adoption programme. It was a trail of destruction — fallen trees, electric poles and telephone lines. In certain parts, it was so bad that entire stretches of road had been washed away. Mukherjee and I were ferried on motorcycles over unmotorable roads, and even took a ferry to visit an island where people were stranded,” he added.