Nirupam Sen (8 October 1946 — 24 December 2018) was a

Bengali Bengali or Bengalee, or Bengalese may refer to: *something of, from, or related to Bengal, a large region in South Asia * Bengalis, an ethnic and linguistic group of the region * Bengali language, the language they speak ** Bengali alphabet, the w ...

Marxist political leader and former Commerce and Industries minister of the Government of West Bengal during 2001 to 2011. He was a senior leader of

Communist Party of India (Marxist) The Communist Party of India (Marxist) (abbreviated as CPI(M)/CPIM/CPM) is a Marxist–Leninist communist political party in India. It is the largest communist party of India in terms of membership and electoral seats and one of the na ...

. He was a member of the politburo of the party between 2008 and 2015. He was elected to the

Member of Legislative Assembly A member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) is a representative elected by the voters of a constituency to a legislative assembly. Most often, the term refers to a subnational assembly such as that of a state, province, or territory of a country. ...

thrice in 1987, 2001 and 2006.

Early life

Sen was born in 1946 in

Bardhaman Bardhaman (, ) is a city and a municipality in the state of West Bengal, India. It is the headquarters of Purba Bardhaman district, having become a district capital during the period of British rule. Burdwan, an alternative name for the city, ...

, State of

West Bengal West Bengal (, Bengali: ''Poshchim Bongo'', , abbr. WB) is a state in the eastern portion of India. It is situated along the Bay of Bengal, along with a population of over 91 million inhabitants within an area of . West Bengal is the fou ...

. He became a member of the

during his student years. Although he started his career as a teacher, he became whole timer of the party in 1968.

Political career

In 1966, Sen was appointed the district secretary of the

Students Federation of India The Students' Federation of India (abbreviated as SFI) is an Indian left-wing student organisation politically aligned to the ideologies of Independence, Democracy and Socialism. Currently, V. P. Sanu and Mayukh Biswas are elected as the All I ...

, students wing of the party. He played a key role in expanding the Party in Burdwan district, and served as the secretary of the

Bardhaman district Bardhaman district (, ; also spelled Burdwan or Barddhaman or Vardhaman) was a district in West Bengal. On 7 April 2017, the district was bifurcated into two districts: Purba Bardhaman and Paschim Bardhaman district. The headquarters of the dis ...

Committee from 1989 to 1995. In 1987 West Bengal Legislative Assembly election, he was first elected as MLA from Bardhaman town assembly constituency. He was elected to the West Bengal state committee in 1985 and he became a member of the state secretariat in 1995. He was elected to the Central Committee in 1998. He became a member of the Polit Bureau in 2008. Sen was elected to the West Bengal State Assembly in 2001 and 2006 from the Bardhaman Dakshin. After the Left Front was voted to power in 2001, Sen was handed the charge of Commerce and Industries and continued until 2011. He was considered to be the prime mover of the industrial drives in West Bengal. Under the leadership of him and then Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, Left Front Government led new industrialisation policy in Singur and

Nandigram Nandigram is a census town in the Nandigram I Community Development Block of the Haldia subdivision in the Purba Medinipur district of the Indian state of West Bengal. In 2007, the West Bengal government allowed the Salim Group to set up a ch ...

. He was also a front-runner to become the secretary of West Bengal state committee of CPI(M) twice in 2006, after the death of Anil Biswas and again in 2012 after the party's drubbing in 2011 assembly elections. He lost to the

Trinamool Congress The All India Trinamool Congress (English: All India Grassroots Congress; AITC), colloquially the Trinamool Congress ( TMC) is an Indian political party which is predominantly active in West Bengal. The party is led by Mamata Banerjee, the cur ...

candidate Rabiranjan Chattopadhyay in 2011 from the same Vidhan Sabha. He stepped down from the central committee and the politburo in 2015 and from the state committee in 2018 due to ill health. However, he became a special invitee to the Central Committee between 2015 and 2018.

Controversy

By the end of 2006, the land acquisition movement at Hooghly over the Singur Tata Nano controversy had started taking a toll on the regime. The protest against the forcible land acquisition ultimately caused serious effects to the Government. Sen faced intense criticism both within and outside the party. Apart from land acquisition issues, Sen's name also cropped up in the Sainbari incident in March 1970 after the fall of United Front government in West Bengal. He along with

Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee also known as Buddha Babu (born 1 March 1944) is an Indian Communist politician and a former member of the Politburo of the Communist Party of India (Marxist). He served as the 7th Chief Minister of West Bengal from 20 ...

quit the Politburo during the party's Vishakapatanam Congress in 2015 due to ill health.

Death

Since 2013, Sen was suffering from various health issues like neurological and kidney related ailments. He died on 24 December 2018 at 72 following a cardiac arrest in

Bidhannagar Bidhannagar is a planned urban agglomeration and city and a municipal corporation of the North 24 Parganas in the Indian state of West Bengal. It is in Greater Kolkata region and also a part of the area covered by the Kolkata Metropolitan Dev ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sen, Nirupam 1946 births 2018 deaths Communist Party of India (Marxist) politicians Communist Party of India (Marxist) politicians from West Bengal Members of the West Bengal Legislative Assembly State cabinet ministers of West Bengal People from Purba Bardhaman district