Headlines
Thousands bid farewell to Karthikeyan
Thiruvananthapuram, March 8
Thousands of
people turned up at various places on Sunday to bid goodbye to Kerala
speaker G. Karthikeyan, who passed away on Saturday after battling liver
cancer for the past few months.
His body was brought to his official residence here on Saturday from Bengaluru where he died.
The
compound of his official residence which is next door to the Kerala
Legislative assembly was thrown open to all and till Sunday morning,
thousands of people from all walks of life came to pay their last
respects.
On Sunday morning, the body was placed at the members'
lounge in the assembly as 66-year-old Karthikeyan became the first
speaker of the assembly to die while the session is on.
The
budget session of the 13th assembly began on Friday with the Governor's
address and the state budget for the 2015-16 fiscal will be presented on
March 13th.
Leader of opposition V.S. Achuthanandan, political
leaders from various parties and the staff of the legislature paid their
last respects and from there, the body was moved to the Congress party
headquarters.
From there, it was taken to the Durbar Hall in the state Secretariat, the seat of power.
At the Durbar Hall, Kerala Governor P. Sathasivam paid homage to Karthikeyan.
From
there, his body was taken to his assembly constituency in the city
suburbs near Aruvikara for his electorate to pay their last respects.
Then
it was brought back to his home in the city and all the religious rites
was conducted and the body was taken for its final journey to the
state-owned crematorium.
Near the crematorium, he was accorded
the official send off and after that the body was placed inside the
crematorium and was consigned to flames.
Present at the
crematorium were Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy and his cabinet
colleagues. Also present were Congress leaders A.K. Antony, M. Veerapa
Moily, Mukul Wasnik, Left leader V.S. Achuthanandan and numerous top
political leaders.
On Monday, the assembly will wind up the day's
proceedings after the obituary reference and then the business advisory
committee will meet to discuss if any change is needed in the present
schedule.
On Monday at 10.30 a.m, an all-party meeting will be
held at the VJT Hall here in Karthikeyan's honour and all leading
politicians from various parties will be present on the occasion.
A seven-day mourning that began on Saturday has already been declared in the state as a mark of respect to him.