Congress leaders Mallikarjun Kharge and Rahul Gandhi with family members of late party leader Vasantrao Chavan.
Credit: Congress
Mumbai: Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Mallikarjun Kharge on Thursday visited the home of late party veteran Vasantrao Chavan, the Nanded MP who passed away last week.
Gandhi and Kharge, the Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha respectively, are on a visit to Maharashtra amid upcoming state assembly elections later this year.
Gandhi and Kharge met family members of Chavan and offered their condolences.
Chavan (70) died on August 26 at the KIMS Hospital in Hyderabad, where he was admitted a few days ago following multiple complications and breathlessness.
In the recently concluded Lok Sabha elections, Chavan had defeated sitting MP of BJP Prataprao Patil Chikhalikar by 59,442 votes under difficult and challenging circumstances.
The Nanded constituency is one of the prestigious seats in the Marathwada region of Maharashtra as the district has given the state two chief ministers - late Shankarrao Chavan and his son Ashok Chavan.
The Congress party in Nanded was weakened after veteran Ashok Chavan switched over to the BJP to become a Rajya Sabha member.
Starting political life as a Sarpanch of Naigaon village in 1978, Chavan worked his way up the political ranks as president of Zilla Parishad and then was elected to both houses of Maharashtra legislature, serving for a total of over 16 years.
In 2009, he was elected as a MLA from Naigaon in Nanded as an Independent and in 2014 as a Congress member.
As legislator, Chavan served in various capacities in different committees of the state government and was also active in the academic field, serving as President of the Janata High School in Nanded.
He was Trustee and Chairperson of Janta High School and College of Agriculture in Naigaon.