By IANS,
New Delhi/Mumbai: Veteran Congress leader Vasant P. Sathe, who passed away in Gurgaon late Friday evening, was blessed with remarkable oratory skills which he honed during his university days in Nagpur, and later as a trade union leader and politician.
Born in Nashik on March 5, 1925, Vasant Sathe had plunged into the freedom struggle when he was a teenaged student in Nagpur.
At the height of the 1942 Quit India Movement launched by Mahatma Gandhi, the 17-year old Sathe had pulled down the Union Jack and unfurled the Indian tricolour at Nagpur district court, bravely facing a firing squad and caning.
Sathe was educated partly in Nashik and Nagpur, and qualified as a lawyer.
Working among the industrial workers and masses prompted him to join the Socialist Party and then the Congress in 1964.
Eight years later, he was elected a member of the Lok Sabha in 1972 from Akola and later from Wardha in the backward Vidarbha region of eastern Maharashtra – and never looked back.
Working his way up, he became close to the then prime minister Indira Gandhi and remained staunchly with her during the dark days of the Emergency (1975-77), and post-emergency when the Congress split and almost all known and senior Congress leaders deserted Gandhi, Sathe stayed unflinchingly by her side.
Two years later, when the Janata Party coalition headed by then prime minister Morarji Desai took over the reins of the country, Sathe served as the feputy leader of the Congress in Parliament.
Soon afterward, when the Congress stormed back to power in 1980, Sathe was made the union minister for information and broadcasting in Indira Gandhi’s cabinet and fought to introduce colour television in India.
He was also instrumental in setting up a network of low power transmitters all over the country to bring the government-controlled powerful audio-visual medium to the homes of over three-fourths of the countrymen.
Subsequently, he handled several important portfolios like chemicals & fertilisers, steel, mines & coal, energy and communications.
After he gradually withdrew and retired from active politics, Sathe devoted his time to writing books on various socio-economic issues confronting the nation.
Top leaders, including President Pratibha Patil and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, have released his books on various occasions with senior political leaders in attendance.