Veteran CPI Leader AB Bardhan No More

 

New Delhi: Veteran Communist Party of India (CPI) leader A B Bardhan was in critical condition after suffering a paralytic stroke here on Monday, hospital authorities said. 

The 93-year-old leader was found unconscious around 8 a.m. at the CPI headquarters Ajoy Bhavan where he lived. He was rushed to the G.B. Pant Hospital by CPI colleagues. 

“Bardhanji has suffered a paralytic stroke. His condition is critical and he is under close observation,” a hospital official said.

Born on Sep 24, 1924 in Bengal Presidency of British India (Now Bangladesh), Bardhan grew up with Marxist ideology. He is from Nagpur and contested many elections from there winning only one – the 1957 for the Maharashtra State Assembly as an Independent candidate.

Ardhendu Bhushan Bardhan, well-known as AB Bardhan, he lost the 1967 and 1980 Lok Sabha elections contesting from Nagpur. He moved to Delhi politics in the 1990s and became the deputy general secretary of the party. He succeeded Indrajit Gupta as the General Secretary of the CPI in 1996.

Bardhan played pivotal role during the formation of Maha Kutami with TDP in 2009. He’s considered as the stalwart of the Communist Party of India. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, President Pranab Mukherjee, CPM present general secretary Sitaram Yechury and former general secretary Prakash Karat, AP CM Chandrababu Naidu condoled Bardhan’s death.
He later rose to become the General Secretary and then the President of the All India Trade Union Congress, the oldest trade union in India.

Bardhan’s wife, a professor in Nagpur University, died in 1986. The couple has a son and a daughter.