People's Democracy

VETERAN CPI(M) leader and former member of its West Bengal state committee, Comrade Laxmi Sen passed away on February 17 at a Calcutta hospital. He was 82 and had been suffering from a variety of age-related problems for a long time.

Comrade Laxmi Sen’s demise was condoled by CPI(M) leaders including Jyoti Basu, Anil Biswas, Sailen Dasgupta, Biman Basu, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and others. Leaders of all constituent parties of the Left Front expressed their grief at the passing away of Comrade Sen.

Born at Kalabedia village in undivided Bengal on January 31, 1920, Comrade Sen had to struggle through his boyhood against the curse of poverty. He came over in 1947 to what became West Bengal and found employment of sorts in a small drug manufacturing company.

Working for a pittance for what was a back-breaking job for the lean and thin youth, here Comrade Laxmi Sen came into touch with a revolutionary and Communist Party leader, late Comrade Ganesh Ghosh, and was soon deeply involved with the refugee movement.

Comrade Sen was inducted into the Communist Party by the summer of 1952, and by 1958 he had been elected a member of what was the Calcutta district council of the undivided party.

Incarcerated between 1962 and 1966 after the Sino-Indian border dispute, Comrade Sen won councillorship of the Calcutta Municipal Corporation while remaining behind bars.

Subsequently, he registered electoral victories from the Belgatchia assembly constituency in 1969, 1971 and 1977. He was quick to emerge as one of the most engaging and forceful speakers of his time.

By 1964, Comrade Laxmi Sen had become a member of the Kolkata district secretariat of the CPI(M). Between 1971 and 1998, he was a member of the state committee of the Bengal unit of the party.

An undaunted fighter for the cause of revolution and a fearless opponent of both right revisionism and Left sectarianism, Comrade Laxmi Sen was a member of the CPI(M)’s Calcutta district secretariat till he died.

Comrade Laxmi Sen’s last remains were brought to rest at the Promode Dasgupta Bhavan of the Calcutta district committee where a large number of party workers and supporters paid their last respects to the departed comrade. Earlier, state leadership of the CPI(M) paid their homage to the memory of Comrade Laxmi Sen when the cortege was brought to the Muzaffar Ahmad Bhavan.

Speaker of the Bengal assembly Hasim Abdul Halim and its members paid their respects to the departed legislator at the Vidhan Sabha Bhavan.

Comrade Laxmi Sen’s last remains were then taken in a large procession to the N R S Medical College and Hospital as per the wishes of the departed leader who had already pledged his body for medical research.