New Delhi: Former Union minister and senior Congress leader Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi passed away on Monday at a private hospital in New Delhi. The 72 year old was in coma since 2008 when he suffered a stroke. He was 72. He was in coma since 2008.
Dasmunsi was the Union parliamentary affairs minister when suffered a massive stroke in October 2008 that left him paralysed.
He was initially treated at the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) and later shifted to a private hospital in Delhi. He was also taken abroad for treatment but with little success. His wife Deepa Dasmunsi contested the 2009 Lok Sabha election from his constituency and won. She was also a minister in the UPA 2 government.
A five-term member of Parliament, Dasmunsi became the Union minister of state for commerce in 1985 and the party’s chief whip in the Lok Sabha in 1999.
When the Congress came to power in 2004, he joined the Union Cabinet as the minister for water resources. He was first elected to Lok Sabha at the age of 26. He also served as the president of All-India Football Federation for almost 20 years.
President of the AIFF from 1988 to 2008, Dasmunsi was the first Indian to serve as a match commissioner in a Fifa World Cup game.
President Ram Nath Kovind, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Congress president Sonia Gandhi condoled the death of the former minister.
The Congress president said that Dasmunsi was a devout political activist and one of the tallest leaders of West Bengal.
“His work at the immense work at the grassroots would be remembered for posterity, despite his prolonged illness, he remained popular among his people. His death is an irreparable loss to the Congress party and the country,” she added. Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi also expressed condolences to the family of Dasmunsi.
