TRIBUTE PAID TO ASHOK
GHOSH, VETERAN LEFT LEADER
Veteran All India Forward
Bloc (AIFB) leader and senior-most leader of the Left Front in West Bengal,
Ashok Ghosh, died on 3rd March,2016, Thursday. He was 94. He had been on ventilator
support for over a month.A freedom fighter, Mr. Ghosh was the State secretary
of the AIFB, the second biggest constituent of the Left Front, since 1951 — for
65 years. He joined the AIFB in 1940, a year after its formation, influenced by
the political philosophy of Subhas Chandra Bose. In more than seven decades of
public life, Mr. Ghosh did not leave the AIFB. Born on July 21, 1921 at
Chinsurah in the Hooghly district of south Bengal, he was one of the founding
members of the Left Front in West Bengal, which ruled the State for 34 years
from 1977 to 2011.Mr. Ghosh’s most significant contribution to the Bengal’s
Left movement was destabilising the Congress by forging an anti-Congress
alliance, much before the CPI(M)-led Left Front came to power in West Bengal.
He was one of the key architects of the first and three successive
anti-Congress governments between 1967 and 1970.
“He indeed was one of the
key leaders of the Front after Jyoti Basu,” said Shyamal Chakravarty, senior
CPI(M) leader. Mr. Ghosh played a significant role in providing advice and
support to his comrades in Bangladesh during the Liberation War of 1971.Aside
from Jyoti Basu, Mr. Ghosh was perhaps the only other leader who was acceptable
to all Front constituents and even to the Front’s arch rival, Mamata Banerjee,
who paid many visits to the veteran over the years. “He used to like me a lot
on a personal level,” the Trinamool Congress leader, who visited the ailing
leader a few weeks ago in the hospital, tweeted.
Prof. John Kurakar
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