Veteran CPM leader Jyoti Basu passes away

“I have a sad announcement to make. Jyoti Basu is no more with us. He has left us. Jyoti Basu is no more in this world,” an emotional Left Front chairman Biman Bose,who broke down with tears welling his eyes,said breaking the news after lost his fortnight-long battle to the respiratory disease that led to complications and multi-organ failure.

A pall of gloom descended in Left front-ruled West Bengal after the news of Basu’s death spread while political leaders across the spectrum hailed the Marxist patriarch as a ‘great son of India’. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said Basu was a powerful regional voice in the national political scene.

‘Comrade’ Basu almost became the Prime Minister after the 1996 Lok Sabha elections at the head of a Centre-Left coalition but missed the crown because his CPI-M rejected the offer saying it did not want to participate in the government in which it did not have a majority. Basu himself famously said later that his party’s decision was a ‘historic blunder.’

A barrister by profession,Basu also influenced his party to give outside support to the Congress-led UPA government at the Centre in 2004. He is survived by son,Chandan,daughter-in-law and three grandchildren. His wife Kamal had died four years ago.