July 18,2023:Former Kerala chief minister and Congress Working Committee member Oommen Chandy died in a hospital in Bengaluru on Tuesday morning. He was 79.
The Kerala Government has declared a two-day mourning and public holiday in the state Tuesday.
The mortal remains of Chandy will be flown to Thiruvananthapuram, where his body will be kept at the Congress State Committee office and later at the Darbar hall of the Secretariat for people to pay their homage. His funeral will be held on Thursday at Puthuppally in Kottayam.
Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said Chandy was a capable administrator and one closely involved in people’s lives.
One of the popular political leaders in Kerala and a crowd puller, Chandy served as the state’s chief minister from 2011 to 2016, and from 2004 to 2006. He had also served as the Opposition leader in the Kerala Assembly from 2006 to 2011.
Chandy, known as a mass leader who loved to live among the people, was the longest-serving legislator in the Kerala Assembly. He had represented the Puthuppally Assembly constituency from 1970 successively until his death, a rare feat in state politics. In the Assembly election held in 1970, Chandy was elected from Puthuppally at the age of 27.
When Chandy won the Assembly elections of 2021, it was his 12th consecutive win from the same seat. Chandy had also served four Congress cabinets, under the veteran leaders K Karunakaran and A K Antony, handling the portfolios of labour, finance, and home.
Chandy, the mainstay of Congress politics in Central Kerala, was born on October 31, 1943, in Puthuppally, which later emerged as his political fiefdom. He was initiated into politics through the Kerala Students Union, the students’ wing of Congress. A graduate in law, Chandy went on to become a prominent leader of Youth Congress in Kerala and rose as its state president in 1969.
During his second stint as the Kerala chief minister, Chandy had launched a mass contact programme to meet people and hear their grievances and ensure relief to them. His programme was widely lauded as a unique democratic experiment in which the chief minister of a state met thousands of people directly without any intermediaries. The programme received the United Nations Global Award for Public Service in 2013.
Oommen Chandy is survived by his wife Mariamma and children Maria Oommen, Chandy Oommen, and Achu Oommen.
