{"id":328930,"date":"2020-11-25T04:33:23","date_gmt":"2020-11-25T04:33:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tehelka.com\/?p=328930"},"modified":"2020-11-25T04:34:33","modified_gmt":"2020-11-25T04:34:33","slug":"i-have-lost-an-irreplaceable-comrade-faithful-colleague-and-friend-sonia-gandhi-on-ahmed-patels-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/i-have-lost-an-irreplaceable-comrade-faithful-colleague-and-friend-sonia-gandhi-on-ahmed-patels-death\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;I have lost an irreplaceable comrade, faithful colleague and friend&#8217;: Sonia Gandhi on Ahmed Patel\u2019s death"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-305863 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/tehelka.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/soniaa.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"682\" srcset=\"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/media\/2018\/11\/soniaa.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/tehelka.com\/media\/2018\/11\/soniaa-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/tehelka.com\/media\/2018\/11\/soniaa-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/tehelka.com\/media\/2018\/11\/soniaa-696x464.jpg 696w, https:\/\/tehelka.com\/media\/2018\/11\/soniaa-631x420.jpg 631w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/>Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Wednesday expressed grief over the\u00a0demise of Ahmed Patel, saying that she had lost an &#8220;irreplaceable comrade, faithful colleague and a friend&#8221;.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">&#8220;In Ahmed Patel, I have lost a colleague whose entire life was dedicated to the Congress Party,\u201d she said<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">\u201cHis faithfulness and dedication, his commitment to his duty, his always being there to help, his generosity were rare qualities that distinguished him from others,&#8221; she added.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Sonia further said, &#8220;I have lost an irreplaceable comrade, a faithful colleague and a friend. I mourn his passing and I feel deeply for his bereaved family to whom I offer my sincere feelings of empathy and support.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">The 71-year-old Patel passed away at a hospital in Gurugram in early hours of Wednesday, weeks after contracting COVID-19.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">The Congress party tweeted, \u201cIn the shocking demise of Shri. Ahmed Patel ji, the Congress Party has lost one of its strongest pillars &amp; the nation has lost a deeply dedicated leader. With a heavy heart we pay our profound condolences to his family &amp; his followers at this time of grief.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Ahmed Patel was close to the Nehru-Gandhi family\u00a0and served as\u00a0Sonia Gandhi&#8217;s political secretary for years.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Wednesday expressed grief over the\u00a0demise of Ahmed Patel, saying that she had lost an &#8220;irreplaceable comrade, faithful colleague and a friend&#8221;. &#8220;In Ahmed Patel, I have lost a colleague whose entire life was dedicated to the Congress Party,\u201d she said \u201cHis faithfulness and dedication, his commitment to his duty, his [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":305863,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1801],"tags":[4323,1701],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328930"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=328930"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328930\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":328933,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328930\/revisions\/328933"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media\/305863"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=328930"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=328930"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=328930"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}