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Bhubaneswar (Orissa) : Orissa on Sunday condoled the death of veteran Marxists leader and record serving Chief Minister of Indian, Jyoti Basu, who passed away in Kolkata after pro-long illness.
Describing Basu’s death as great loss to the country, Governor MC Bhandare said that the former Bengal Chief Minister was truly a committed leader. “I am greatly shocked and I lost one my best friend,” Bhandare said.
Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, whose late father Biju Patnaik, a close friend of Basu, also condoled the death. “He was a leader, who believes in his work, he would be remember for his remarkable land reforms laws in Bengal,” Patnaik said.
CPI(M) State secretary, Janardan Pati while hailing Basu as true Gandhi of Bengal, said, he played a key role in Indian Marxists movement. “I am deeply shocked, I lost my political guru,” an emotional Pati added.
“If destiny had been on his side, Jyoti Basu would have become India's prime minister in 1996,” the CPI (M) leader said.
CPI State secretary Dibakar Nayak and Forward Bloc State secretary Santosh Mitra also condoled the death of Basu. The Left Parties also held condolence meetings here.
“That perhaps was the only time the very 'bhadralok', or gentleman, Basu broke the CPI-M's strict rules of discipline. He got away with it because he was the prima donna of Indian Communism, a product of aristocracy who embraced Marx in London and became the longest serving chief minister in the country,” they added.
Born July 8, 1914, in Kolkata, the son of a doctor was schooled in Loreto and St. Xavier's. He graduated from the Presidency College of Kolkata with an honours in English in 1935.
He then studied law in London where he came in contact with the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB), the alma mater of many an Indian Communist.
Basu's early associates included the veteran British Communists Harry Pollitt, Rajani Palme Dutt and Ben Bradley. In London, he joined the India League and the Federation of Indian Students in Great Britain.
On returning to India, Basu joined the then undivided Communist Party of India (CPI) and in 1944, three years before the British Raj ended, started working among railway workers.
He got into electoral politics in 1946, getting elected to the Bengal Legislative Assembly.
Winning elections then became a habit for Basu. After independence, he was repeatedly elected to the West Bengal legislature, starting in 1952.
When the CPI split in 1964 parallel to the Sino-Soviet break-up, Basu became one of the nine founding politburo members of the more radical CPI-M.
West Bengal was in turmoil in the late 1960s, with a section of the CPI-M revolting in a small West Bengal village known as Naxalbari and igniting a bloody Maoist movement.
Two shaky and short lived governments took office in West Bengal in 1967 and 1969, and Basu was the deputy chief minister -- his first stint as an administrator.
