THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Senior AICC leader Ahmed Patel, who passed away in Gujarat on Wednesday, is known to Malayalis more as ‘Aluminium Patel’. It was in a controversial speech by then Democratic Indira Congress (Kerala) leader K Muraleedharan in Kozhikode that he had referred to Ahmed Patel, the powerful political secretary of Congress president Sonia Gandhi, like this in an apparent dig at him, comparing him to the Iron man of India, Sardar Vallabhai Patel.
However, Muraleedharan, MP, now recalls that he had shared a cordial relation with the Chanakya of Congress politics who asked him to second the proposal by former prime minister Manmohan Singh which saw Sonia Gandhi being chosen as the Congress parliamentary party leader.
After K Karunakaran and his son Muraleedharan challenged the Congress and left the party in 2005, the duo formed DIC(K). For a while, the duo was with Sharad Pawar’s NCP. It was during his stint in DIC(K) that Muraleedharan dared to address Sonia Gandhi as a “foreigner imported from Italy” and Ahmed Patel as “Aluminium Patel” who allegedly called the shots in the Congress.
Muraleedharan’s comments became controversial to the extent that political circles sealed the former’s fate. But Muraleedharan returned to the Congress in February 2011 and he reconciled with the AICC leadership including the all-powerful Ahmed Patel.
“I came up with the controversial comments against them during the then prevalent political conditions. Ahmed Bhai never took my words seriously and he had told me then that it was understandable. We both shared an excellent camaraderie until his last. It was Ahmed Bhai who asked me to second Manmohan Singh’s proposal to make Sonia Gandhi the parliamentary party leader, saying that I was a senior MP of the Congress,” Muraleedharan told TNIE.
Ahmed Patel who was holding the post of AICC treasurer is the second senior-most Congress leader to die due to Covid -19 after former Assam chief minister Tarun Gogoi. Their compatriot and CWC leader A K Antony who too is undergoing treatment for Covid -19 in All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, has been “devastated” by the news of Ahmed Patel’s death.
“Gogoi and my dad had been friends since 1977. Ahmed Patel had been his closest friend and confidant in New Delhi from 1984 after Rajiv Gandhi appointed him as the AICC general secretary. Gogoi and Ahmed Patel were political secretaries of Rajiv Gandhi then. My dad is really stressed and, above all, shocked to hear the untimely passing away of two of his close friends,” Anil K Antony, elder son of Antony told TNIE.
KPCC cancels all events
As a mark of respect to the departed leader, the KPCC leadership cancelled all party programmes in the state, including the press meet scheduled by Opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala. KPCC president Mullappally Ramachandran, Chennithala, former chief minister Oommen Chandy and KPCC office-bearers offered floral tributes in memory of Ahmed Patel. They all recalled how Ahmed Patel had remained behind the curtains and worked in the interest of the Congress whenever the party had gone through turbulent phases.