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Ex-Left Front Minister and Noted Youth Leader Manab Mukherjee Passes Away

Manab Mukherjee, 67, was one of the leading faces of the student and youth movement of the state in the late 80s and 90s.
Ex-Left Front Minister and Iconic Youth Leader Manab Mukherjee Passes Away

Kolkata: Former Left Front minister and well known student and youth movement leader Manab Mukherjee is no more. He breathed his last on Tuesday after a massive heart attack in his home. He was 67. He leaves behind his wife, Prof Ishita Mukherjee, and daughter, Hiya Mukherjee. 

Today, thousands are expected to attend the funeral procession, His mortal which have been kept at Peace Haven mortuary since Tuesday night. His body was taken to the state CPI(M) office at Muzaffar Ahmad Bhawan and then to Kolkata district office of CPI(M). Later his body will be taken to Calcutta University premises and then to Calcutta Medical College and Hospital, where his body will be donated for medical causes. He also pledged both his eyes which have been donated.

Communist Party of India (Marxist) General Secretary Sitaram Yechury, party State Secretary Md Salim, Left Front Chairman Biman Basu, CPI(M) Politbureau member MA Baby, AIKS General Secretary Hannan Mollah and AIDWA leader Maimuna Mollah condoled his death. West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, too, condoled the untimely demise of Manab Mukherjee.

An articulate speaker and gifted writer, Mukherjee was one of the state's leading faces in the student and youth movement in the late 80s and the 90s. Born in 1955, he was a meritorious student of Jodhpur Park Boys' School in Kolkata. Later, he did MBA from Calcutta University, where he was also general secretary of the students' union and was known to be a good organiser. 

In 1984, Mukherjee became president of the Kolkata district SFI unit and was also elected a member of the Central Executive Committee of SFI. In 1986, he joined DYFI and, in 1987, became the district president of DYFI. He was also the editor of the organisation's mouthpiece in Bengal known as Yuvashakti.

In 1991, he became state secretary of DYFI .He became a member of the Kolkata district committee of CPI(M) in 1986, and in 1998, became a member of the West Bengal state committee. In 2018, he became the state secretariat member of the CPI(M), though he left midway due to failing health.

Mukherjee was first elected to the Assembly in 1987 from Beleghata in Kolkata. He was elected as a member of the Assembly four times in a row. He was a minister in the Left Front government from 1996 to 2011 and was in charge of different key departments like youth affairs, tourism, small-scale industries and environment.

Mukherjee, who travelled extensively in South Africa after the end of the apartheid as part of a delegation of the World Federation of Democratic Youth, later wrote a book on the birth of the nation, a witness account, in Bengali. He has also written books on the politics around Bangladeshi infiltration, China's role and the RSS resurgence in the country. He was also instrumental in leading the movement for constitution of Haldia Petrochem and the Bakreswar Thermal Project.

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