Southern States - Kerala-Thiruvananthapuram   

E.M. Sreedharan dead

By Our Special Correspondent

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM Nov. 14. The CPI(M) State committee member and former member of the State Planning Board, E. M. Sreedharan, died here early this morning after a year-long fight with cancer. He was 55.

Sreedharan, Communist stalwart E. M. S. Namboodiripad's son, was admitted to the Regional Cancer Centre (RCC) here on September 30. His condition deteriorated steadily after that and the end came at 4-30 a. m. today. The body was shifted to the AKG Centre in the morning and kept there to enable the public to pay homage.

The Chief Minister, A. K. Antony, his Cabinet colleagues, the State Planning Board vice-chairman, V. Ramachandran, Government officials, leaders of various political parties and scores of party workers paid tributes to Sreedharan and conveyed their condolences to the family members before the body was taken to the electric crematorium at Thycaud at 2-30 p. m. On way to the crematorium, the body was kept for a brief while at the office of the party organ, Deshabhimani, where he had been working as Resident Editor for nearly a year.

The CPI(M) politburo member, S. Ramachandran Pillai, flew down from New Delhi to attend the cremation. The Leader of the Opposition, V. S. Achuthanandan, had visited Sreedharan at the RCC on Thursday. He could not be present for the cremation as he had left for Shoranur by the night train. The CPI(M) State secretary, Pinarayi Vijayan, is away in Germany. The former Chief Minister, E. K. Nayanar, was present at the AKG Centre to receive the body and bid his young comrade adieu.

Born on January 23, 1947, Sreedharan started his public life as a student activist. He was the Thiruvananthapuram district president of the Kerala Student Federation (KSF), which later became part of the Students Federation of India (SFI), during 1965-'66 and had later held district presidentship of the Kerala State Youth Federation (KSYF), which later became part of the Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI).

After a brief stint as a chartered accountant in Kozhikode and Chennai, he returned to active politics in 1973. He was initially associated with Chintha Publishers and, in 1983, took over charge of the ideological publications of the CPI(M). For a while, he was also a member of the editorial board of People's Democracy, the CPI(M) ideological organ at the national level. He became the State joint secretary of Kerala Karshaka Sanghom in 1985 and a member of the All India Kisan Council in 1995.

He was private secretary to the 1987-'91 LDF Government's Finance Minister, V. Viswanatha Menon, and had himself contested unsuccessfully to the State Assembly from the Sreekrishnapuram constituency in 1991 and to the Lok Sabha from Mukundapuram in 1998.

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