The Congress Working Committee (CWC) will meet virtually on Friday to offer homage and adopt condolence resolution for two of its tallest leaders — Ahmed Patel and former Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi — who passed away earlier this week, a party functionary said on Thursday.
Both leaders died of complications after contracting COVID-19.
While Patel, 71, a serving member of the CWC, passed away on Wednesday morning after weeks of hospitalisation, Mr. Gogoi, 85, died on Monday.
One of the key strategists and a trouble shooter of the party, Patel was not only one of the closest aides of president Sonia Gandhi but is also credited with keeping the party and the Congress-led UPA government together by managing its various factions.
“His faithfulness and dedication, his commitment to his duty, his always being there to help, his generosity were rare qualities that distinguished him from others. I have lost an irreplaceable comrade, a faithful colleague and a friend,” Ms. Gandhi said in her tribute to Patel, who served as her former political secretary for over a decade.
She had also paid rich tributes to Gogoi and recollected the Gandhi family’s association with him.
“I know in what great regard Smt. Indira Gandhi and Shri Rajiv Gandhi held him. For me, his loss is also a deeply personal one — I cannot forget the warmth and care he showed me on my many visits to Assam...No wonder he was Assam’s most universally loved and venerated public figure and the longest-serving Chief Minister,” she had said in a letter to his son and Lok Sabha member Gaurav Gogoi.
