Jyoti Basu

Jyoti Basu ( Bengali: জ্যোতি বসু, Jyoti Basu, born July 8, 1914 in Kolkata, † January 17, 2010 ibid ) was an Indian politician of the CPI (M). He was from 1977 to 2000 Chief Minister of West Bengal, 1964-2008 Politburo member of his party.

Life

Basu was born the son of a judge. He graduated in 1935 at the Faculty of Arts of the prestigious Presidency College of Calcutta University and then went to London to study law. Through his college friend Bhupesh Gupta he came up with the Communist Party of Great Britain in contact and was engaged in left -wing circles of Indian students in England.

Jyoti Basu came back to India in 1940 and immediately became a member of the Communist Party of India (CPI ). 1944 delegated him his party to Railway Union, where he was general secretary.

Political career

Basu was elected in 1946 for the electorate of railway workers in the Bengal Legislative Assembly ( Parliament of Bengal ). When the CPI split in 1964, Basu became a prominent leader of the new Communist Party of India ( Marxist) (CPI (M)). 1967 and 1969, Basu became Deputy Chief Minister ( Deputy Prime Minister ) of West Bengal in the government of a grand coalition.

From 1977 to 2000 Jyoti Basu was Siddhartha Shankar Ray as successor to himself Chief Minister of the state of West Bengal in each left-leaning governments. After the political unrest of the late 1970s during the reign of Indira Gandhi, the political situation in West Bengal stabilized in the 1980s under Basu's leadership. After the parliamentary elections in India in 1996 he was nominated by the parties of the victorious United Front coalition for the office of Indian Prime Minister, the Central Committee of the CPI ( M) but decided not to participate in the government, which he was denied these items. Basu came back in 2000 for health reasons as Chief Minister of West Bengal and handed the office of his party comrades Buddhadeb Bhattacharya. As a member of the Politburo of his party he was missing for reasons of age for the first time in 2006 at the age of 91 years at a meeting. In March 2008 he left together with Harkishan Singh Surjeet, the only other remaining charter member of the Politburo of the CPI ( M), from the party's highest body.

Basu was with more than 23 years of service, the longest reigning chief minister of an Indian state.