The Hindu : National : Chittabrata Majumdar passes away

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Feb 21, 2007
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National

National

Chittabrata Majumdar passes away

Marcus Dam

Veteran of the trade union movement, he upheld the workers' cause

KOLKATA: Chittabrata Majumdar, general secretary of the Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) and member of the Polit Bureau of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), died after a protracted illness here on Tuesday. He was 71 and is survived by his wife and daughter.

Lung ailment

Mr. Majumdar, who was also member of the Rajya Sabha, had been admitted to a private nursing home with severe lung ailment on February 1. He was on life support system for the past few days as his condition deteriorated. Senior leaders of the CPI(M) and the CITU were among those who went to the nursing home on receiving the news.

His body which will be kept overnight at a funeral parlour will be taken on Wednesday to his residence at Salkia in Howrah and then to the CITU office, the West Bengal Assembly and the CPI(M) headquarters here before being donated to a city hospital.

Held several posts

A veteran of the trade union movement, Mr. Majumdar was member of the undivided Communist Party of India since 1956 and joined the CPI(M) when it was founded in 1964. He became member of the party's Central Committee in 1995 and the Polit Bureau in 2005.

He was member of the general council of the CITU when it was formed in 1970 and twenty years later was elected general secretary of the West Bengal Committee of the CITU. At the CITU's 7th all-India conference in Kolkata in 1991, he was elected one of its national secretaries. In 2003, he was elected general secretary of the CITU at the national level.

Mr. Majumdar represented the CITU at various international conferences and meetings in different parts of the world. As a trade union activist, he was known for upholding the workers' cause in various sectors, including jute and engineering. He was also West Bengal's Minister of Cottage and Small Scale Industries in the Left Front Government from 1977-1982. He was elected to the Rajya Sabha in June 2004 and re-elected in August 2005.

Skilled organiser

West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee condoled the death of Mr. Majumdar.

"We have lost a skilled organiser and trade union leader. The loss is irreparable," Mr. Bhattacharjee said.

A.B. Bardhan, general secretary of the Communist Party of India, and Gurudas Dasgupta, general secretary of the All India Trade Union Congress, in a joint statement, said that Mr. Majumdar had taken a "leading role in organising agitations against the new economic policies of the Central Government and also against capitalist attacks on the working masses."

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