Veteran Congress leader and former federal minister Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi, who was in coma for nine years, died yesterday. He was 72.
“He died at 12.10pm today. He had been critically ill for the past one month and unfortunately succumbed to his illness,” Apollo Hospital said in a statement.
He is survived by his wife Deepa Dasmunsi and son Priyadeep Dasmunsi who were at his bedside, the statement said.
Dasmunsi suffered a brain stroke in 2008 and was admitted to the All India Institute of Medical Science. Later he was taken home, and in 2009 was admitted to the Apollo Hospital here.
The stroke left him paralysed and unable to speak. Blood supply to a part of Dasmunsi’s brain was cut off causing irreversible damage. All basic life functions like breathing, blood pressure and sleep-awake cycle were stable but he was not conscious of his surroundings.
Dasmunsi was a member of parliament from 1999 to 2009. He served as the minister of Parliamentary Affairs and minister of Information and Broadcasting from 2004 to 2008, during the first term of the Manmohan Singh-led Congress government.
He represented the Raiganj Lok Sabha constituency in West Bengal, which was later represented by his wife Deepa. He began his political career with the Youth Congress before entering parliament in 1971. In 2014, the Trinamool Congress roped in his brother Satyaranjan Dasmunsi to face off against Deepa.
Dasmunsi’s popularity among Congress supporters was such that his name was included in the 90-member campaign committee for the West Bengal assembly elections in 2016.
In 2006 he became the first Indian to be a match commissioner in a FIFA World Cup game when he performed the role in a group stage game between Australia and Croatia in the 2006 World Cup.
Dasmunsi was heading the Indian football governing body at the time of his stroke in 2008, which led to Praful Patel taking over as president.
Congress president Sonia Gandhi expressed grief and remembered Dasmunsi as a “devout political activist and one of the tallest leaders of West Bengal in recent times”.
“In a career spanning almost five decades, Dasmunsi served the party and government illustriously,” Gandhi said.
She said his immense work at the grassroots would be remembered for posterity.
“Despite his prolonged illness, he remained popular in the imagination of his people. His death is an irreparable loss to the Congress Party and the country.”
Dasmunsi: dies after being in coma for nine years.
