COMRADE Samir Chakraborty, a prominent communist leader, CPI(M) West Tripura district secretariat member, and former Tripura state committee member of the Party, breathed his last at dawn on July 18th at ISL Hospital, Agartala. He had been admitted to the hospital the previous day with multiple health issues, including chest pain. He was a chronic diabetic patient. He was 73 years old.

In the late sixties, there was a spontaneous student uprising against the repressive Congress regime in Tripura. Comrade Samir Chakraborty was one of the architects who guided the movement, skillfully transforming the spontaneity into an organised Left student movement, which ultimately stimulated the communist movement in the state. He was joint secretary of the Tripura State Students’ Federation (SF), the state’s first Left student organization which was formed in 1968. When the SF affiliated with the SFI in 1970, Comrade Chakraborty was elected president of its state unit. Later on, he became a member of the all India committee of the SFI as well as its vice president.

While working in the student front, he became a member of the CPI(M) in 1969. He was elected to the state committee at the 14th state conference of the Party in 1991. From 1994, he successfully discharged his responsibility as secretary of the CPI(M) Sadar sub-divisional committee and continued until 2005. He was elected twice to the Agartala municipality. At the 23rd state conference in 2022, he was relieved from the state committee due to health reasons.

During the Emergency in June 1975, he was detained along with several other communist leaders of the state. He was released only after the lifting of the Emergency 19 months later. Again, he was detained without trial during the Congress-TUJS coalition regime in 1989. He was an orator par excellence.

Long live Comrade Samir Chakraborty.