Agartala, Sept 16: The Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) has lost one of its chief strategists in Tripura with the demise of its veteran leader and party’s state unit secretary, Gautam Das at a hospital in Kolkata on Thursday morning.

A former journalist, Das was rushed to Kolkata last week following Covid-19 complications where he breathed his last at 7.19 AM on Thursday morning. He was 74.

He contracted the virus last month, but his conditions started deteriorating since last week.
Das is survived by daughter Swagata Das and wife Tapati Sen.

His body will be brought back to Agartala and likely to be cremated here on Friday.
Tripura Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb condoled the death of Das in a message.

Das leaves huge vacuum in Tripura CPI-M

The demise of Das has left a vacuum in the Tripura CPI-M that is already battling its worst phase ever that has been several of its leaders turncoat, being rendered to opposition in 2018, tasting first defeat in the Tripura Autonomous Council elections, and now several other leaders being poached by the Trinamool Congress (TMC).

He was a central committee member of the CPI-M and one of the three chief strategists of the party in Tripura besides former CM Manik Sarkar and former party secretary Bijan Dhar.
Das is one of the founding members of the Agartala Press Club and was the founding Editor of the CPI-M’s mouthpiece “Daily Desher Katha” from 1979, a post that he held until 2015.

Sarkar mourns demise of Das

Condoling the death of Das, CPI-M politburo Sarkar in a statement said that since his school days Das was active in politics as part of the student movement in Tripura.
“Das led a very simple life and was a comrade of high loyalty and commitment to the party’s cause. His departure, coming at a time when the party is valiantly facing vicious and violent attacks in Tripura, is a big loss,” the CPI-M politburo statement said.

Das’s rise through the ranks in CPI-M

In 2018, Das became the CPI-M state secretary and was also very active in the cultural movement and was founder secretary of the Tripura Sanskriti Samanway Kendra, a Left supported literary-cultural body.

Das joined the Party in 1968 and became a member of the Tripura State Committee in 1986, from which he was elected to the Central Committee at the 21st Congress of the party in 2015.

The CPI-M statement said that his family, having roots in Chittagong, has great attachment to Bangladesh. This helped him maintain cordial relations with the political parties in the neighbouring country, on behalf of the CPI-M.