India News | Cong Leaders Condole Sushil Modi's Demise

New Delhi, May 14 (PTI) Senior Congress leaders, including party chief Mallikarjun Kharge, on Tuesday condoled the demise of former Bihar deputy chief minister and BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi.

Modi, who was suffering from cancer, died on Monday night at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in Delhi. His last rites were performed in Patna on Tuesday.

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Congress president Kharge expressed his deepest condolences to the family and supporters of the former deputy CM.

"Our ideologies were different, but in a democracy, national interest is paramount. He had made a significant contribution to the GST Council. May God give peace to the departed soul. Respectful tributes," he said in a post in Hindi on X.

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Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said the news of the demise of Sushil Modi is "extremely sad".

"In this time of grief, I express my deepest condolences to all the bereaved family and supporters," he said on X.

Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh, who is also the Congress chief whip in Rajya Sabha, said early this morning that Sushil Modi, also a former Rajya Sabha MP, was a distinguished product of the JP Movement in Bihar during the mid-70s.

"He and I belonged to diametrically opposed political ideologies, but that had not come in the way of our sharing a warm personal friendship for years, often bantering with each other.

"As Finance Minister of Bihar, he chaired the Council of State FMs for some time when the Congress was in power at the Centre. He worked constructively with both Pranab Mukherjee and P Chidambaram. He was hugely knowledgeable, especially on state finances," he said.

Ramesh said Modi spent a few days with him in Andhra Pradesh, when Rajasekhar Reddy was CM, to understand how the women's self-help group movement was playing a transformational role in that state.

"He contributed to the making of the National Rural Livelihoods Mission - Aajeevika - that was launched in mid-2011 to make bank-linked women's self-help groups a national project.

"His speeches in the Rajya Sabha were heard with rapt attention. They were deeply researched and well argued. His criticisms of his political opponents on the floor of the House were sharp but dignified," the Congress leader said.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)