Congress loses 2 stalwarts in Ambareesh and CK Jaffer Sharief

BENGALURU: The Congress has lost two veterans with the death of star-turned-politician Ambareesh, 66, and former railway minister CK Jaffer Sharief, 85. AICC president Rahul Gandhi called it “a day of tragedy for the Congress party” while mourning the demise of the two. Thelast rites of the leaders will be performed on Monday with full state honours.

Both the politicians went through ups and downs in politics. While Ambareesh left his deep footprint in the Kannada film industry and won a place in the hearts of his friends and fans as a do-gooder, Sharief reached his political peak in the early 1990s as railway minister in the PV Narasimha Rao cabinet. He was responsible for conversion of narrow and meter gauge lines into broad gauge all over India. It was under him that the Railways undertook a massive modernisation exercise. Sections of analysts thought he could one day become the CM given his close connect with people and solid understanding of issues, but that was not to be.

The star, Ambareesh, born in Mandya, and famous also as the grandnephew of violin maestro Chowdiah, came into movies accidentally. His first movie, Nagarahaavu, made by ace director Puttanna Kanagal, was a smash hit. Ambareesh did not look back thereafter, and acted in more than 200 films. The sea of humanity at Kanteerava Stadium in Bengaluru and the district stadium in Mandya to bid farewell to Ambareesh was proof of his immense popularity.


In the past 12 years, the Kannada filmdom has lost its famous trio — Rajkumar, Vishnuvardhan and now Ambareesh — all of whom steadfastly promoted the Kannada pride when the language faced threats in the technology capital.

Ambareesh represented Mandya in the Lok Sabha first as a JD(S) member and later as a Congress member. He was minister of state for information & broadcasting in the UPA-I regime and later, as Congress MLA from Mandya, became housing minister in Siddaramaiah’s cabinet. He was ailing for some time and underwent treatment in Singapore. He fell out with Siddaramaiah after he was dropped from the cabinet, and dodged offers to contest again from Mandya in the May 12 Assembly polls. He kept the Congress guessing till the last moment about his contesting, and finally, opted out of electoral politics.

The state will bury the mortal remains of Ambareesh at Kanteerava Studios, close to where Rajkumar has been buried.