LDALL BASU 2

Thousands of mourners thronged the roads as Basu's
body was taken to Peace Haven, a private funeral parlour,
where it will kept for people to pay homage. He will be
cremated on Tuesday at the Keoratala ghat.

His eyes, which he had donated, were removed by
doctors of an eye hospital.
President, Vice President, Prime Minister and leaders
across the entire political spectrum condoled Basu's demise
hailing him as one of the legends of the communist movement in
the country.
Home Minister of India P Chidambaram, who had visited
the hospital in the morning, described Basu as a great patriot
and a democrat.
The Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M), which he
had founded along with several others in 1964 when the CPI
split, expressed profound grief at his death and called him
one of the tallest leaders of the Communist movement in the
country.
Basu, who was deputy chief minister twice in the
United Front governments of West Bengal in 1967 and 1970, was
first elected MLA in 1952 and then continuously for 10 terms
till 1996. He was the last surviving member of the
'Navratnas', the nine members of the first Polit Bureau.
Chandan, his wife Rakhi and Basu's granddaughters
Payel, Doyel and Koyel were at the hospital.
Left Front ministers, Pratim Chatterjee, Kiranmoy
Nanda, Sudarshan Roychowdhury, Ranjit Kundu were also at the
hospital this morning.
Former Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee, CPI(M)
leader Brinda Karat, veteran Forward Bloc leader Ashok Ghosh
and a host of Left Party leaders visited the hospital. MORE
(MORE) PTI AMR
AHM


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