Karnataka Congress pays tributes to Manmohan Singh at venue planned for convention

Belagavi, Karnataka: Karnataka Congress on Friday paid tributes to former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who died on Thursday, at the site where they planned mega convention here for the centenary celebrations of the 1924 Indian National Congress session presided by Mahatma Gandhi.

Several Congress leaders including its President Mallikarjun Kharge and Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi, attended the extended Congress Working Committee meeting planned as part of the centenary celebrations, here on Thursday.

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They were scheduled to address a mega convention named 'Jai Bapu- Jai Bhim - Jai Samvidhan' here today, but the event was cancelled following Singh's demise. Kharge, Gandhi and several AICC leaders have rushed back to Delhi.

Other leaders including Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, Deputy Chief Minister and state Congress chief D K Shivakumar, state ministers and legislators paid floral tributes to Singh's portrait at the venue planned for mega convention.

Siddaramaiah in his address said, Manmohan Singh was a great economist and a very humble human being.

"He was soft natured, soft and less spoken. I had the opportunity to meet him several times as the Leader of Opposition and Chief Minister of Karnataka. He treated and spoke to everyone respectfully and heard everyone patiently and used to say directly whether something told or requested of him will either happen or not," he said.

Singh was an honest Prime Minister, the CM said, he had occupied various positions in his career and did justice to them, and tried to find solutions to various problems faced by the country.

Recalling his tenure as finance minister in Narasimha Rao government and as prime minister for ten years, Siddaramaiah said, he opened up the economy, lifted the country financially, and the nation cannot forget his contribution.

It was Singh who brought in the food security act, Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA), Right to Education, Right to Information, Siddaramaiah said, "He tried to lift the people of the country socially and economically. He was a cultured, gentlemanly politician. His death is a loss to the entire world..." Shivakumar lauded Manmohan Singh's economic policies and contribution for the country's progress. He asked the Karnataka Higher Education Minister to explore the possibility of setting up a big research centre on Singh's economic policy at the Bengaluru University.

"We will make necessary decisions on this at the government level and in the cabinet," he said, noting that Singh's policies touched upon all sections of the society. "He might have passed away, but his programmes are still alive. We shall all walk in the path that he has laid down." Shivakumar said, K C Venugopal asked him to try and connect Manmohan Singh to the extended Congress Working Committee meeting virtually but former prime minister's office informed him that he was unwell and about to be moved to AIIMS in New Delhi.

"When the AICC president was hosting a dinner on Thursday night, Rahul Gandhi received a phone call informing that Singh's condition had deteriorated. We immediately halted the dinner at 9.50 pm and I was officially asked to halt all the events including the mega convention scheduled for Friday," he said.

Manmohan Singh, the architect of India's economic reforms, died in New Delhi on Thursday night. He was 92.

Singh's death was announced by the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Delhi, where he was admitted in the Emergency ward around 8.30 PM in a critical condition.