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Freedom fighter and CPI-M leader Samar Mukherjee, the party’s oldest living member whose 100th birthday was celebrated in November last year, died in Kolkata yesterday. He was a bachelor. |
Mukherjee, who was widely admired for his spartan lifestyle and parliamentary elegance, was admitted on Wednesday night to a hospital with breathing problems.
“He died yesterday morning at around 10,” said Rabin Deb of the Communist Party of India-Marxist, which Mukherjee joined in 1964 following the split in the undivided Communist Party of India.
Mukherjee moved to the CPI-M’s “commune” in south Kolkata’s Dilkhusha Street in 1965, where he was the sole occupant in his last days.
Describing Mukherjee as “a most exceptional, outstanding and dedicated” communist leader, the CPI-M politburo in a statement highlighted his “rare qualities”.
“Rarely have we seen such an individual who sacrificed all personal interests, living a spartan life in a party commune in the service of the party. He was affable, easily accessible and loved by the people.”
Even political opponents were effusive in their praise.
Trinamool Congress leader Sougata Roy, who was a member of the Charan Singh ministry when Mukherjee was in the Lok Sabha, said: “ He was dignified, decent, civil, a thorough gentleman.”
State Congress president Pradip Bhattacharya called him “knowledgeable and soft spoken”.
“Despite our ideological differences, I had the highest regard and respect for him. His death is a loss not only to the CPI-M, but for the entire political fraternity.”
Born at Amta in Howrah district on November 7, 1913 - exactly four years before Lenin took power in Russia - the articulate Mukherjee represented Howrah in the Lok Sabha for three consecutive terms between 1971 and 1984.