Kolkata :

Saifuddin Choudhury former CPM MP died on Sunday at a hospital at Delhi. Choudhury was an eminent parliamentarian who will be remembered for his fiery speeches. He was 62 and was suffering from throat cancer for the last few years.

He became an MP from Katwa in Burdwan in 1980. However, there was growing discontent between him and CPM top leadership for which he left the party in 2000 on ideological grounds. He later floated PDS and remained its state head. Saifuddin Choudhury was close to the grass roots and had raised several fundamental questions while Jyoti Basu was the CM in Bengal. He was a student leader but also argued for the farmers and had raised questions how CPM was being drifted away from the farmers.

Choudhury was a logical speaker and had always wanted to form a Left unity forum though he had even delivered speeches from Mamata Banerjee’s platform while Mamata was on her 26-day hunger strike. Choudhury would often criticize CPM leaders for their involvement in unethical practices and he refused to accept them as his party comrade and for which he snapped ties with CPM.

There were proposals to bring him back to CPM, but ultimately that did not happen.

He will be cremated at Memari, his village in Burdwan on Tuesday.

source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> India / by Debashis Konar, TNN / September 15th, 2014