Condoling the demise of “dear friend” Cho Ramaswamy, Prime Minister Narendra Modi today paid rich tributes to the veteran journalist and satirist, remembering him as a “multidimensional personality” and a “fearless voice” whom he admired.

“Cho Ramaswamy was insightful, frank & brilliant. Pained by his demise. Condolences to his family & countless readers of Thuglak,” he said in a tweet.

“Cho Ramaswamy was a multidimensional personality, towering intellectual, great nationalist & fearless voice who was respected and admired,” Modi added.

“Above all, Cho Ramaswamy was a dear friend. I have been to his annual readers meeting which were an unprecedented editor reader interface,” he said.

While paying homage, the Prime Minister also posted on his twitter handle two videos of a function in Tamil Nadu in which Cho, in a satarist tone, describes the then 3rd time Gujarat Chief Minister as “the merchant of death”, apparently to take a dig at Congress president Sonia Gandhi who had used the term for Modi.

“Yes, here I invite to address you, the merchant of death, the merchant of death to terrorism, the merchant of death to corruption, the merchant of death to nepotism, the merchant of death to official inefficiency, the merchant of death to bureaucratic negligence, the merchant of death to poverty and ignorance, the merchant of death to darkness,” Cho says in the video of ‘Readers Conference’ hosted by him.

In the second video of the same function whose date is not clear, Modi says that he had been knowing Cho since the days of Emergency as the “true democrat” stood up to it.

“returned the favour, but don’t think I matched Cho’s eloquence,” Modi said in tweet accompanying the video.

Ramaswamy, a veteran journalist and former Rajya Sabha member, died in Chennai following illness.

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