I would like to welcome all of you here. It is an honour for me to come and speak at this function.

I have now been in politics since 2004 and I can say that I don’t have a huge experience, but, I do have a certain amount of experience in politics, in India. So, I would like to tell you a little bit about my experience in politics.

When I first started, I used to see many different types of politicians around me; some, who had very-very smart ideas; others, who spoke really well, could come to a function like this and talk in a way, which really convinced people. Some people would think very deeply about issues. If you ask them about an issue, they could almost give you a PhD, and each politician is semblance of speaking ability, thinking ability and when you read the newspapers, or you judge a politician, mostly you will say-Oh! He is an expert on this field or he speaks really well, but after some time in politics, I discovered that people are not really interested in how well a politician speaks or how well he thinks about something.

Because, before you speak and before you think about something, you have to feel about that thing and I discovered that what people actually want from a politician, is his ability to feel for them and often this is not so obvious. Somebody is only thinking and feeling about himself, his future, he can give a good speech. Somebody is thinking deeply about some subject because he wants to impress people, he can impress people, but feelings are something that comes from inside. It’s an act of humility, so when you see a farmer, do you see a farmer or do you see a human being? Do you feel the fear that he is feeling because it might not rain? Do you feel, how he feels about his children, when he goes to sleep?

In Wayanad, there is a lot of man-animal conflict and people get killed by tigers by elephants. You can go there and say- yes! We are going to fight man-animal conflict and you can give a speech about some smart idea about how you are going to do it or you can go to Wayanad, and you can feel what the children of the man who died felt. You can feel the fear that the person must have felt, when the tiger suddenly came in front of him. You can feel that when the tiger was killing him, he was thinking, who is going to look after my children.

So, true politics is not about what you say or what you think, it is about your ability to feel, what people are feeling and if you want to feel what other people are feeling, you have to curtail your greed, your anger, your own fear. If you want to feel, what the farmer is feeling- you have to kill your ambition, you have to kill, what you think, he can give you.

So, now with little bit of experience, whenever a politician comes to me, young Congress politician come to me, I listen to what they say, I listen to how well they say it, but I am looking actually about whether they feel for other human beings and it’s very easy to see. Somebody is giving you a long lecture on economic theory and you are sitting at a restaurant, having lunch with him and the waiter serves him and he is rude to the waiter, I understand everything, I have to understand.

So, you must be thinking, why I have come here and why I am talking to you about politics and feeling? Because in my 21 years of political life, one of the masters of politics of feeling was Oommen Chandy Ji. I literally saw him and may be lot of people in Kerala will not understand this, because they did not see him from inside. I literally saw him, kill himself for the people of Kerala. And I remember when I came on… I think it was the ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’ and everybody had said, the doctors had told me, everybody had said- Oommen Chandy cannot walk in the Yatra and I went to tell him, I said- listen, you cannot walk and he refused. He said- I am going to walk and then I had to force him only to walk a limited amount and you will not believe it. We had to literally forcibly take him into the car. This does not happen, because you speak well or because you think well; this only happens when you feel for the people, who you are working with.

And for me, Oommen Chandy Ji is not just an individual, he is an expression of Kerala politics and Kerala… now I have seen the politics of Kerala. Kerala has a tradition of this type of person and my aspiration is to develop more and more people like Mr. Oommen Chandy.

Also, I came into contact with Oommen Chandy Ji early on in my career and I must say, I learnt a lot from him. He got the most brutal, unfair political attack on him. I would say criminal attack on him. Lies, non-stop lies were told about him and I used to talk to him on the phone in those days. I never heard him speak angrily about anybody ever. Always balanced, always humble, always working in the interest of the people of Kerala. I just saw the programme for cochlear implant, let me just give the implants to some children. You please think about this. How many votes you think would come because of this programme? Not many votes will come because of this programme. It’s a rare problem. But why Mr. Oommen Chandy put this programme, because he wanted that every single child in Kerala should be able to hear the voice of other people. Once again, the politics of feeling that you can put yourself in the place of a little child, who cannot hear.

I fight the RSS ideologically, I fight the CPIM ideologically and I fight them in the realm of idea and I fight them in the realm of speech. But, my biggest complaint of them is that they do not have feelings for people. You can give whatever speeches you want, you can have whatever ideas you want, if you do not feel for people, if you are not ready to connect with people, if you are not ready to hear people, you cannot be a leader. And so that is my biggest complain that if you are in politics, feel what people are thinking, listen to people, touch people and that is really the tragedy in Indian politics today, very few people are actually feeling what others are feeling. And it’s an honour for me to come here and speak to you about Oommen Chandy Ji.

In India, there is the word ‘Guru’. ‘Guru’ doesn’t mean teacher, teacher is someone who explains something to you or may be tells you some information or teaches you something. A ‘Guru’ is somebody, who shows you direction and a ‘Guru’ is somebody who shows you direction by his actions.

So, in many ways, Oommen Chandy Ji is my ‘Guru’ and the ‘Guru’ of many people in Kerala. He showed us the direction, not by talking, not by thinking, but by acting. So, when his son called me and said- please, come for the function, I immediately, before even answered him, in my mind it came that it will be an honour for me to go to the function of my ‘Guru’, and I look forward to many young people in Kerala to follow his footsteps and behave in the tradition of the politics of Kerala. And of course, coming here I must say that I am missing Mr. Chandy, who would normally be sitting over there on the stage. Thank you very much!

A Report

Kottayam: Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha, Shri Rahul Gandhi, paid floral tribute to former Chief Minister Oommen Chandy at his grave on his second death anniversary. He later visited the Saint George Orthodox Church in Puthuppally on July 18, 2025. He also Inaugurated a public meeting as part of second death anniversary of Oommen Chandy at Puthuppally.

The event, organised by KPCC, held on the grounds of Puthuppally Church. The remembrance meeting began with floral tributes at Chandy’s tomb. KPCC President Shri Sunny Joseph presided over the function. The inauguration of the Smriti Tharangam charity project, launched in memory of Oommen Chandy. Additionally, the handover of the keys to 11 houses completed by the Oommen Chandy Foundation and the inauguration of the second sports turf named Oommen Chandy Sports Arena, constructed as part of the campaign against drugs.

The function was attended by his eminence Baselios Marthoma Mathews, Catholic Bava; Archbishop Mar Thomas Tharayil, Sayyid Sadiq Ali Shihab Thangal, Swami Vireshwarananda, AICC General Secretary (O) Shri K.C. Venugopal, AICC General Secretary Shri Ramesh Chennithala, Smt. Mariyamma Oommen, Shri Chandy Oommen family members and friends of Oommen Chandy, senior Congress & UDF Party leaders and large number of Congress workers.