JYOTHI BASU

India’s longest serving Chief Minister and veteran Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPM) leader, Jyoti Basu’s health condition is still critical. He was kept on almost 40 percent ventilation in the hospital. Basu was admitted to the AMRI private hospital near his salt lake residence following chest congestion and infection on 1st January and shifted to the intensive critical care unit on 2nd January. On 6th January, he was put on ventilator support due to acute respiratory problems. Basu is one of the founding fathers of the CPM.
BIOGRAPHY
India’s veteran communist leader Jyoti Basu was born on 8th July 1914 in Calcutta, Bengal as the son of a doctor Nishikanta Basu and Hemalata Basu. After gaining graduation with honours from the ‘Arts Faculty of the Presidency College’, he went to UK to study law. In England, he was inspired by noted Communist Philosopher and prolific writer Rajani Pam Dutt and understood the activities of politics through the ‘Communist Party of Great Britain’. He was also actively associated with the India League and the Federation of Indian Students in England. He returned to India as a barrister in 1940 and became a leader of the Eastern Bengal Railroad Workers’ Union. In 1946, Basu was elected as the member of Bengal Legislative Assembly and became the opposition leader in 1957. In 1977, he became the Chief Minister of West Bengal and remained the Chief Minister till 2000. Thus he holds the record for being the longest-serving Chief Minister in Indian political history. His government made tremendous achievements in West Bengal. Basu restored political stability in the state and he made land reforms which provided land to more than one million sharecroppers. That government also improved WestBengal’s agricultural and fishery production. In 2000, he resigned from the Chief Ministership of West Bengal due to the health reasons. In 1996 parilament election, he was considered as one of the possible candidates for the post of Prime Minister. However, the CPI(M) Politburo decided not to participate in the government and later Basu described this decision as a ‘historic blunder’. Overall, Basu is a great politician who win the hearts of the people through his politicial ideas. Basu is married twice. Earlier, he is married to Basanti ghosh who died on typhoid and then he married to Kamal Basu and they have a son Subhabrata Basu.
UPDATES
Veteran Communist leader and former West Bengal chief minister Jyoti Basu passed away on 17th January, 2010 after a 16-day battle in the AMRI Hospital, Kolkata. His body will not be cremated but his body will be handed over to a state-run hospital, because he had donated his body to the hospital. All people were mourned the death of one of the most accomplished leaders of India.
