Congress remembers Ahmed Patel: The backroom operator and crisis manager who steered embattled Gujarat party unit

Over the years, Ahmed Patel came to be regarded as a backroom operator, a soft spoken Congressman who could be called on at the time of a crisis.

Several senior Congress leaders paid their tributes to late party leader Ahmed Patel on his birth anniversary Monday, remembering him for his troubleshooting and crisis management skills.

Jairam Ramesh, the Congress General Secretary in-charge, tweeted: “Ahmed Patel, who succumbed to COVID-19 almost 3 years back, would have been 74 today. For years, he was a pillar of the Congress party organisation. Totally self-effacing and low-profile, he had friends in all political parties. His personality lent itself to effective troubleshooting and crisis management in which his skills were acknowledged to be legendary and is still recalled. He was a friend, philosopher and guide to a vast many.”

At the time of Patel’s passing, senior party leader Sonia Gandhi described him as an “irreplaceable companion”. Her son and former Congress president Rahul Gandhi called Patel “one of the pillars of the Congress”.