WITH the passing of Comrade Kumar Shiralkar on October 2, 2022 at the age of 80 due to cancer, the CPI(M) and the Left democratic movement of Maharashtra has lost a dedicated, multi-faceted revolutionary leader. I have lost a true comrade and friend of the last 40 years.

A remarkable Adivasi leader of the CPI(M) and AIKS in Maharashtra, Barkya Mangat, aged 69, passed away on the evening of March 31, 2022, of a sudden heart attack. He was ailing for a few months. Mangat was a member of the Party's Maharashtra state secretariat since 2015 and was the secretary of the Party's Thane-Palghar district committee from 2014 till 2022. He was also the vice president of the AIKS Maharashtra state council.

IT came like a bolt from the blue – the news of Mahendra Singh’s sudden demise by heart attack in Mumbai on the morning of July 4, 2021. It was unbelievable and shattering. Just the previous evening he had guided a CITU meeting at the Bhandup office. A week ago, on June 26, he led the joint demonstration at the historic August Kranti Maidan in Mumbai to mark the ‘Save Agriculture, Save Democracy’ nationwide call and led the delegation that met the governor of Maharashtra. He told the governor to his face that his BJP-RSS central government was running an undeclared emergency.