By IANS,
New Delhi : National Conference leader Farooq Abdullah and Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad Sunday condoled the death of Jyoti Basu and said the leading light of the Communist movement in India would be missed.
Abdullah, who is the minister of new and renewable energy, said he would miss the leader who had helped in nation-building.
“I will miss him tremendously,” an emotional Abdullah said. “To the people of West Bengal, I will say he has contributed for a strong India.”
Abdullah said the veteran leader and Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) were hit hard by four mistakes – Basu not becoming prime minister in 1996, the CPI-M not working in tandem with the Congress party, the rapid industrialization policy of the current chief minister in West Bengal and the acquisition of farmers land.
Senior Congress leader and Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad also expressed “deep sorrow” and said Basu was an idealogical sage.
“Jyoti babu was not only one of the longest serving chief ministers in the country but also an extremely popular mass leader,” Azad said in his condolence message.
“He was among the leading lights of the Left movement in the country. In his death we have lost one of our tallest national leaders and an ideological sage who always worked for the downtrodden,” the former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister said.