People's Democracy

COMRADE Partho Sarathi Sengupta, the first manager and organiser of the party’s press in Delhi, Progressive Printers, died in a Kolkata hospital on September 1. He was 78.

Sengupta joined the party in 1953. He worked in the New Age Printing Press as a machine operator. He was active on the trade union front. Later he joined the CPI(M). Sengupta set up a small press in Delhi in the name of Progressive Printers at Rampura, which served the needs of the Delhi unit of the CPI(M) and the trade unions.

In 1977 when the Central Committee office shifted to Delhi, it was decided to set up a printing press of the CC in Delhi. Sengupta was assigned the task. The press was set up in Okhla Industrial Area in 1978. He built up the press from scratch.

In 1989, the Progressive Printers moved to its new premises in the Jhilmil Industrial Area in East Delhi where a new building was constructed. Sengupta retired the same year, after serving as manager for over a decade.

Sengupta was unmarried. He led a simple and austere life. He was known for his total dedication to the party and his scrupulous honesty. After retirement he went to Kolkata.

Harkishan Singh Surjeet, general secretary of the party, and Prakash Karat, Polit Bureau member in charge of the party press, sent telegrams of condolences to his sister and family members at Kolkata.

On September 3, a condolence meeting was held at the party headquarters in New Delhi to pay homage to Comrade Sengupta. This well-attended meeting was addressed by Polit Bureau members Prakash Karat and E Balanandan, among others. The speakers highlighted the sterling qualities Comrade Sengupta, a "communist sanyasi" in Balanandan’s words, possessed. The meeting observed two-minute silence in memory of the departed leader.