Kerala speaker G Karthikeyan passes away

Mangalore Today News Network

Kerala, March 7, 2015: Speaker of the Kerala assembly and Congress leader G Karthikeyan passed away on Saturday morning. He was 66.

Karthikeyan was undergoing treatment for liver cancer at the HCG Hospital in Bangalore. The body will be brought to Thiruvananthapuram later on Saturday.

State Home Minister Ramesh Chennithala said GK, as Karthikeyan was known, was like an elder brother to him and the loss to politics in Kerala was immense.

Karthikeyan rose through student politics from his days in SN College, Kollam, to become a prominent, often rebellious, idealistic Congress leader. That rebellious streak caught the imagination of the youth when he challenged his own political mentor K Karunakaran. He along with a few other dissidents, primarily Chennithala and MI Shanavas, objected to Karunakaran projecting his son Muralidharan in the party.

Karthikeyan held the Power portfolio in 1995 and Food and Civil Supplies in 2001, both under AK Antony.

Last year, Karthikeyan sought to resign from his post as Speaker. Although he said he wanted to return to active politics, the buzz was that he would be brought into the cabinet. But that was not to be. Like many times before, a ministerial post eluded him.

He represented the Aryanad constituency, now Aruvikkara, in Thiruvananthapuram six times.

Karthikeyan is survived by wife Dr MT Sulekha and two sons Ananthapadmanabhan and Sabareenath.

Courtesy: Indiatoday