Veteran Congress leader A.K. Antony bids farewell to parliamentary politics
The Hindu
Delhi does not hold the charm any longer, A.K. Antony says, as he recalls his earlier days in the Capital
Veteran Congress leader A.K. Antony bid farewell to parliamentary politics and Delhi on Wednesday after spending 38 years in five stints in the Rajya Sabha, where his final tenure ended on April 7. At 81 years, with a formidable CV behind him, the former Defence Minister want to slowly withdraw from national politics too.
For now, he will continue in all positions within the Congress, including the Congress Working Committee (CWC).
He came to Delhi for the first time in 1973 as a 33-year-old Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee president (elect) to meet Indira Gandhi. He was the youngest president of the Kerala unit, a record that still remains unbroken.
Remembering those simpler times, Mr. Antony, speaking to The Hindu, said, “I took a taxi from Kerala House where I was staying to Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s residence at 1 Safadarjung Road. My taxi was allowed to go till the courtyard of the house and Ms. Gandhi herself came to receive me.”
His relation to the Congress top leadership though did not stop him from parting ways from Indira Gandhi to be first part of the Congress (Urs) formed by then Chief Minister of Karnataka D. Devaraj Urs, and later forming his own outfit in Kerala, the Congress (A), in 1978. He remained away for four years.
He acknowledged on Wednesday that in 1982, when he returned to the Congress, he was received by Indira Gandhi without any malice. The three-time Kerala Chief Minister and India’s longest serving Defence Minister expressed his debt to the Gandhi family for giving him everything
“The Congress cannot exist without the Gandhi family at the centre of it. It’s the Gandhi family that is holding the party together. I have nothing to say those who believe that they can erect a Congress without the Gandhi family,” he asserted.
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