Nirmal Mukherjee passes away at 82

KOLKATA: Veteran CPI-M leader Nirmal Mukherjee passed away in the city on Monday. He was 82. Mukherjee was a member-mayor-in-council from 1985 to 1990 during the mayorship of Kamal Basu. He was also an MLA from Behala.

In 1985, he was initially the MIC Conservancy but became MIC (Building) after Rathin Das Sharma died. He launched drives against illegal construction and pull down a portion of the building constructed by the then director general of police Ramen Bhattacharya.

His biggest achievement was the establishment of Sarsuna College and Sarsuna Law College. He virtually went from house to house begging money to set up Sarsuna College.

Mukherjee was respected by the leaders and workers of political parties irrespective of colour because of his honesty and uprightness. He had a very cordial relationship with Mayor Sovan Chatterjee, who was the youngest councillor from Behala in 1985.

In 1990, after the civic poll there was a proposal to make him the mayor but because of the internal squabble between the CPI-M leaders from the added areas and Kolkata in the Calcutta District Committee of CPI-M, Prasanta Chatterjee was made the Mayor despite objection from Jyoti Basu.

Nirmal Mukherjee was a close aide of Kamal Basu and was an able administrator.