Congress leaders and party workers pay homage to Srikant Verma on 33rd death anniversary

NEW DELHI: Congress leaders and party workers have paid homage to veteran politician & poet late Srikant Verma on his 33rd death anniversary at the Congress Bhavan in Bilaspur on 25th May.nnA slew of commemorative programmes was held to pay homage and remember late Shrikant Verma who was recognised as a mass leader in the Bilaspur region of Chattisgarh.nnHe was a prominent Hindi poet in the seventies and a Member of Parliament from Madhya Pradesh as a Congress candidate from 1976 to 1982 and 1982 to 1986.nnHe was a central figure in the Nai Kavita movement in the late1950s and early 1960s and published an influential short novel as well as collections of short stories and literary interviews and essays.nnHis important volumes of poems are Jalasaghar (1973) and Magadh (1984), the latter perhaps the best-known book of Hindi poetry in the 1980s.nnHe was a visitor at the Iowa International Writing Program twice (in 1970-71 and 1978), Srikant Verma penned 20 books for which he was awarded Tulsi Samman, Shiksha Samman and Sahitya Academy Award.nnSrikant Verma was a strong leader, spokesperson and had a very close relationship with Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi and the party High Commands. His journey from a journalist to the supreme leader in the party is a story of a common man with uncommon skills and a tale of victory.nnHe was born in 1931 in Bilaspur, late Verma received his M.A. in Hindi from Nagpur University in 1956 and then moved to Delhi where, for a decade, he worked as a journalist and in various capacities for political organizations.nnLater, he was elected as a member of the Rajya Sabha on a Congress (I) ticket in 1976 and served as an official and spokesman of the party in the late 1970s and the early 1980s. He was Indira Gandhi?s national campaign manager in the 1980 elections that brought her back to power, and he worked as an adviser and political writer for Rajiv Gandhi after 1984.?nnSrikant Verma was married to Veena Verma who was also a Member Of Parliament from Madhya Pradesh. He passed away while being treated for cancer in New York City in 1986.nnSrikant Verma’s son Abhishek Verma is a well-known Industrialist, Philanthropist and former arms dealer who was known as the Lord Of War in the global defence sector.nnAbhishek Verma and his wife Anca Verma has featured under the list of top influential public figures in the world including Forber, Bloomberg, Wired, Fortune etc.nnOn the occasion, his popular work poetry Magadh was recited by Rishi Pandey. The function was attended by Shri Naren Bolar, the President of the city Congress Committee, Shri Pramukh Kumar, Vinod Kumar, Subhash Singh, Kshamta Verma,Vinod Lingum, Sarfraz Ahmed, Atal Shrivastav, Raju Yadav Ashish Singh Former MLA, Chandra Prakash Vajpayee, Asha Pandey, Shehzadi Qureshi, Rishi Pandey Vinay Pandey, Nirupma Vajpayee Seema, Soni Ramsharan Yadav, Bhainesar, Craig McCloud Sonal Sharma, and Rajesh Sonthalia.