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CPM leader Biswas dead
 Subhrangshu Gupta
Tribune News Service

Kolkata, March 26
The CPM Politburo member, Anil Biswas, who was also the party’s state secretary in Bengal, died today at 5.25 pm after remaining in coma since March 18 following massive cerebral stroke. He was 62 and is survived by his wife and lone daughter.

The CPM leader suffered the cerebral stroke on the eve of his departure for Malda on March 18. He was immediately taken to a local nursing home and afterwards to Kolkata’s Woodland Nursing Home, where a surgery was performed to remove blood clots from his brain.

However, he did not regain consciousness. Biswas was at the helm after former state secretary Sailen Dasgupta’s death in 2001. Subsequently, he was made an important member in the party’s highest policy-making body, the Politburo and the central committee along with the Chief Minister, Mr Budhadeb Bhattacharjee, and Mr Biman Bose.

As news of Mr Biswas’s death spread, a large number of party colleagues and the supporters gathered in front of the nursing home. The Chief Minister and other Cabinet colleagues went to the nursing home to pay their last respects.

His body will be kept in the party office at Alimuddin Street for the people to pay their last respects.

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Obituary
 Ideologue who steered CPM towards change

Kolkata, March 26
Senior CPM leader Anil Biswas, who died here today, will be remembered as an ideologue who successfully captained his party’s transition in the state to adapt it to the post-liberalisation scenario.

Born on March 2, 1944, at Karimpur in Nadia district, Biswas graduated with political science from Krishnagar College. During his college days, he became a member of the Bengal Provincial Students’ Federation and subsequently became editor of the BPSF organ ‘Chhatra Sangram.’

In 1965, Biswas enrolled for post-graduate studies at the Calcutta University and the following year, he joined the CPM’s mouthpiece ‘Ganashakti’ as a reporter.

Biswas was elevated to the CPM state committee in 1978, a year after the Left Front came to power in West Bengal.

Three years later, in 1981, Biswas became a member of the state secretariat and in 1985, was made a member of the Central secretariat.

Notwithstanding his responsibilities in the party, Biswas never lost touch with journalism, contributing reports and articles for ‘Ganashakti.’ In 1990, he became its Editor.

Rising in ranks within the party bureaucracy, he became a member of the CPM Politburo in 1998 and the following year, was elected the state secretary.

A disciplinarian, Biswas earned admiration from partymen for his sense of responsibility towards colleagues. A former minister from the party, who fell into difficult days during old age, had recalled how Biswas had looked after him ‘like a son.’ — PTI 

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