Former union minister and senior Trinamool Congress leader Ajit Panja died of cancer at a private hospital in Kolkata early on Friday morning. He was 72 and is survived by his son and daughter.
Hospital sources said that Panja, who was admitted on October 26, breathed his last at 4.30 am.
A six-time MP, Panja was a minister in the governments of Rajiv Gandhi, P V Narasimha Rao and Atal Bihari Vajpayee at the Centre and held key portfolios including information and broadcasting.
Prior to that he was minister in the West Bengal government in 1971 and 1972-77. Panja again held the independent charge of the Information and Broadcasting Ministry in the P V Narasimha Rao government from 1991 to 1993. He was also Minister of State for Coal in 1993.
A founder member of the Trinamool Congress, Panja was elected to the Lok Sabha for the fifth time in 1998
and became the chief whip of Trinamool Congress Parliamentary Party.
He was re-elected to the 13th Lok Sabha for the sixth consecutive term in 1999 and
became Minister of State for External Affairs in the NDA government led by Atal Behari Vajpayee
Panja has a number of books to his credit which included
Sansad Bichitra,
Ganatantra Hatya and
Dunkel Agreement.