Senior CPI(ML) leader Swapan Mukherjee dead

Senior CPI-ML (Liberation) leader Swapan Mukherjee, who played a major role in organising the party and its campaigns, died in Chandigarh early on Tuesday after a heart attack, the Left party said.

The 63-year old CPI-ML (Liberation) Politburo member passed away at around 4:15 AM at a party colleague's residence in Chandigarh where he had gone for a meeting, the party said in a statement. Mukherjee is survived by his wife, a son and a daughter.

"Comrade Swapan's loss is an irreparable one - not only for the CPI(ML) but for the entire spectrum of democratic movements. He died as he had lived - active, optimistic, enthusiastic and tireless to the very last," it said.

Lauding Mukherjee, who was in charge of CPI-ML (Liberation)'s units in Delhi, Punjab, Chandigarh, Maharashtra and Odisha, the party described him as a "brilliant party organiser".

Born on November 17, 1953, Mukherjee had studied at Kirorimal College in Delhi University in the early 1970s, when he was inspired by the Naxalbari struggle to join the Marxist-Leninist movement.