Veteran CPI leader Promode Gogoi dies

Veteran Communist Party of India leader and former Assam minister Promode Gogoi died in  Guwahati  on Friday following a brief illness. Gogoi, the party's central secretariat and national executive member since 1975, was 82 and a bachelor, CPI's state council decretary Bhogeswar Dutta said.

Gogoi suffered a brain haemorrhage on Arpil 4 and was put on ventilation as his condition turned critical. He represented Sibsagar constituency five times in the Assam assembly since 1967 and was the flood control minister of the cabinet rank in the Asom Gana Parishad-led coalition government from 1996-2000.

Gogoi was currently serving as the president of the All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC) and the vice president of the World Federation of Trade Union. He joined the CPI during the pre-independence period when he was a student and as the party was declared illegal, he was sent to Jorhat Jail for three years.

Forefront in the left movement of the region for the last sixty years, Gogoi championed the cause of the working people and played an important role in organising trade unions of different segments of workers including oil employees.