Comrade Daulat Ram
State Vice President of CITU and noted labour leader of Kanpur Com. Daulat Ram passed away on 1 January. Com. Daulat Ram took part in the Kanpur textile workers’ agitation when he was 14, during which movement his first arrest took place. He lived in Urai, having completed his High School in Kanpur and his Intermediate in Jhansi.
Com. Daulat Ram worked in close association with Com. Ram Asare, another well-known labour leader of his time. He became a member of the CPM in 1967 and was the Party’s office-bearer for several years. He contested the Assembly elections 4 times and secured 5000 to 20,000 votes.
Thousands of workers, trade unionists, and women joined the funeral procession on 2 January. His life was dedicated to the welfare of the working class. Lal Salaam to Com. Daulat Ram!
Comrade Byomkesh Banerjee
Comrade Byomkesh Banerjee (born 18 December, 1944) a member of the Party’s Chuchura Local Committee and Vice President of the Hooghly District Committee (West Bengal) of AICCTU breathed his last in a Kolkata hospital in the early hours of 18th January. He was suffering from bronchopneumonia.
Comrade Banerjee joined the communist movement as a student of Hooghly Mahasin college and became a cadre of CPI (ML) from the very inception. Later he became an engineer. Under his inspiration all his brothers, sisters and other family members grew into committed party activists or supporters. He worked among workers in the nearby industrial areas. In the 1980s he became the president of the Hooghly district committee of the IPF. In the 1990s he worked as a member of the Party’s Hooghly district committee and contested the assembly elections from the Chuchra constituency. To the very last he remained active in all types of party activities and earned everybody’s love and respect for his simplicity, humane qualities, personal integrity and commitment to the cause of revolution. Red salute to comrade Byomkesh-da.
Comrade Prabhulal Paswan
Veteran communist leader Comrade Prabhulal Paswan (Kishunjee) passed away in Lucknow PGI hospital on 24 December 2013 following a severe brain stroke. Comrade Prabhulal was born in a village in Bhojpur district of Bihar on 10 January 1937. After finishing graduation he had joined the Bihar State Electricity Board as an employee. The spark of Naxalbari inspired him to quit his job and plunge into the revolutionary politics of CPI(ML). After years of work in Bihar, he took up the responsibility of leading the underground Party organisation in UP, and played a key role in expanding the Party network in UP including in areas currently under Uttarakhand. In the 1980s he also served as a member of the Party Central Committee. After the Party came overground in December 1992, he returned to Bihar and was fielded as Party candidate from the Sasaram Lok Sabha constituency in 1996. Following some differences with the Party organisation he had formally left the Party in the late 1990s but remained a well-wisher of the Party till the very end. Comrade Prabhulal’s dedication to the people and to the revolutionary spirit and vision of the communist movement will continue to inspire new generations of communist activists. CPI(ML) Central Committee pays homage to Comrade Prabhulal Paswan.