Hummingbird News Desk
KRISHNAGAR, 28 APRIL: Gouri Sankar Dutta, an outgoing MLA of Trinamul Congress died of Covid-19 at a private hospital in Kolkata on Wednesday night.
Dutta (71), a veteran politician, columnist and essayist, who had joined BJP in March this year after being denied a poll ticket by the party, had tested positive for the contagion a few days back following which he was admitted to the Saktinagar district hospital.
He was taken to a private hospital in Kolkata on 23 April after his condition deteriorated.
“Gouri-da was not well. His condition continued deteriorating and never improved as he had been suffering from multiple diseases since many years. He breathed his last at around 9.15 pm tonight,” said a party worker.
Dutta, a good orator since the beginning of his political career during the decade of 1970, was involved in Naxalite movement when he was studying in Santipur college. He later became close to the veteran Congress leader and former Land and Land Reform minister Ananda Mohon Biswas and joined the Congress.
“He had quality of statesmanship but his local politics especially ‘Para-politics’ restrained him to reach a high in the state politics. He came to the light in Krishnagar when he started politics from Golapatti. He became popular when he started leading the Jagaddhatri Puja in Krishnagar and introduced Ghat Bisarjan (Ghat immersion),” said his close associate.
During his early stage of politics, his name was tagged in the FIR due to the death of one Bhodor Bose, brother of Bhuti Bose. At that time, he absconded for a few months, but he later came into politics.
In politics, former minister Ananda Mohon Biswas was his god-father and he later became close to the veteran Congress leader Subroto Mukherjee. Once, in the Pradesh Congress, Gouri Dutta and Sankar Singh from Nadia had virtually ruled the politics when Mamata Banerjee was their junior party worker.
Gouri Dutta was one of the few leaders whom Mamata Banerjee used to address him as ‘Gouri-da’. Later, Dutta left Congress and joined Trinamul Congress. He joined the Trinamul from the first day in 1996. He was the district Trinamul Congress president for seven years and he was also the general secretary of the state Trinamul for three years. In 2011, he was given a Trinamul Congress ticket for the Tehatta assembly seat, but he was defeated in the election. In the next term, he was again given a ticket for the Tehatta seat in 2016, and this time he won the seat and became an MLA.
Dutta was Mamata Banerjee’s long political life-partner. But, this year, he was denied a ticket for his constituency. Instead, the party gave a ticket to Tapas Saha. After that he deserted the party and joined the BJP along with his son Ayan Dutta.
For the last few years, his relationship with Mamata Banerjee was not healthy. The Trinamul chief bifurcated the Nadia district politically and deputed Mahua Moitra as the party’s Nadia North district president and Sankar Singh for the Nadia South district president. In recent time, Mahua has been deputed as the party’s Nadia district president. Since then, Dutta started losing his political power within the party.
Dutta was also chairman of the Krishnagar civic body for five years and vice-chairman for five years. He was also the chairman of the West Bengal Khadi and Village Industries Board.
Dutta won over thousands of fans for his efforts in developing his constituency, Tehatta in the last five years. Political leaders across the state and several people took to social media to express their shock and grief over his demise.
