NewDelhi/Nagpur: Former CPI general secretary and senior leader A B Bardhan (92) breathed his last on Saturday.
The end came in the night at G B Pant hospital in New Delhi. Following paralytic stroke he was admitted to the hospital on December 7. At the time of his death his wards Dr Alka Barua and Prof. Ashok Bardhan were by his side. His wife Padma, who was a professor in Nagpur University, had died in 1986. After that, he started staying in CPI headquarters in New Delhi.
Bardhan was put off ventilator yesterday and was able to breathe normally. But today, his blood pressure (level) fell and his condition turned very critical.
Ardhendu Bhushan Bardhan has been a leading figure of the trade union movement and Left politics in Maharashtra. He had won as an Independent candidate in Maharashtra Assembly polls in 1957.
He later rose to become the General Secretary and then President of All India Trade Union Congress, the oldest trade union in India.
Bardhan had moved to Delhi politics in the 1990s and became the Deputy General Secretary of CPI. He succeeded Indrajit Gupta as the General Secretary of the party in 1996.