Congress leader and former Labour Minister N. Ramakrishnan died at a hospital in Mangalore on Monday. He was 71.
Ramakrishnan, who had been ailing for the past few months, died on Monday afternoon at the KMC Hospital in Mangalore where he had been admitted since September 21 after his condition worsened, Congress sources said here on Monday. The former Minister who had served as supremo in the district affairs of the party for several years in the past breathed his last 12 days after he was taken to hospital following complications in his health condition.
Former district Congress committee (DCC) president and Seva Dal Board chairman, Ramakrishnan had entered politics after actively involving himself in trade union activities among beedi workers. Born at Anjarakkandy here in 1941 in a poor family, he had worked as a beedi
worker and started his political life as a local trade union leader organising beedi workers under the Indian National Trade Union Congress. He had also been active as a Congress worker in the
erstwhile Edakkad Assembly constituency. In 1967, he had been elected Youth Congress State secretary when Defence Minister A.K. Antony was its president.
His first stint in the electoral politics was when he had been elected from the Edakkad constituency in 1970. He had also been made DCC president in 1971. It was during his tenure as DCC president the present DCC office building had been constructed. A strongman in the district unit of the party in those days, he had served as DCC president for 18 years.
Those were the days when the Congress and the Communist Party of India (Marxist) in the district had entered into a political confrontation, at times violent, with each other. After a few setbacks in electoral arena in the district and Kasaragod, the veteran Congress leader had
been again elected to the Assembly in 1991 from the Kannur constituency and had served as Labour Minister from 1991 to 1995 in the Ministry headed by late K. Karunakaran.
The late Congress leader had served in 1982-87 as Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee general secretary, chairman of Kerala Handloom Development al Handloom Development Corporation and member of the Small Scale Industries Board constituted by the Central government.
He had also served as chairman of the Kannur municipality. He had also been chairman of the Chamber of Municipal Chairpersons.
The stature of Ramakrishnan in the Congress establishment in the district had been a little eclipsed after he contested as a Left Democratic Front-backed rebel candidate against K. Sudhakaran, his rival in the party, from the Kannur Assembly constituency in 1996.
Despite the LDF support, he was defeated by Mr. Sudhakaran by a margin of 7,862 votes, nearly half the margin he had secured in the constituency in 1991.
He is survived by wife Jayalakshmi Ramakrishnan, who is councillor in the Kannur municipality and standing committee (education) chairperson, and three children.
The body of the deceased leader would be brought here by October 2 evening, party sources said. The body would be kept at the DCC office for public viewing on October 3 before being taken for the funeral at crematorium at Payyambalam at around noon on the same day.
