Kolkata: Veteran peasants leader and three-time CPI-M member of the West Bengal assembly Benoy Konar died at a private nursing home here Sunday after prolonged illness, party sources said.
Konar, 84, left behind his wife, two sons and two daughters.
Active in the farmers’ movement for decades, Konar – a hardliner in his Marxist beliefs – was a leading figure in the militant peasants movement in West Bengal in the 1960s and early 1970s.
He served as the national president of Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) peasants front All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS) for years, and was the organisation’s vice president at the time of his death.
He was also for long secretary of the West Bengal unit of AIKS.
Konar was elected thrice to the Bengal legislative assembly in 1969, 1971 and 1977 from Burdwan district’s Memari constituency.
He was elected chairman of the five-member central control commission at the CPI-M’s 20th Congress in 2012. But resigned later due to ill health.
The brother of legendary communist leader Harekrishna Konar, he was one of the prominent faces of the CPI-M in Burdwan.