KOLKATA: Eminent economist, avowed Marxist and former finance minister in the Jyoti Basu government in West Bengal (1977-86), Ashok Mitra died at a private nursing home in Kolkata on Tuesday morning.

He was 90.

A man of letters, Mitra represents the rare breed of Marxists who left his cushy job as chief economic adviser (CEA) to the government of India in 1972 and cut his teeth with Left politics as the pioneer of the ‘alternative development model’ in Bengal as finance minister of the first Left Front government in 1977. The Marxist economist leaves behind a rich legacy of debates and discourse over Centre-state relations that still come handy for states to expand federalism in terms of economic and political powers.Mitra, unlike his successor Asim Dasgupta, was not very keen on adopting uniform tax rates across the country because he believed that it was in a way an infringement of the state’s domain of shaping up its course.

Uncompromising as he was to stay away from the dirt and filth of running the administration, amply evident from his famous remark “I’m not a bhadralok (gentleman), I’m a Communist”, over removing senior bureaucrat and Basu loyalist SM Murshed from the post of power commissioner, the economist was slowly getting jittery with his own government till he put in his papers as minister in January 1986, following differences with Basu.

At the same time, he resigned from CPM only a month after he was inducted in the party state committee. CM Mamata Banerjee also condoled the veteran Marxist’s death.

Source: The Time of India

BDST: 1220 HRS, May 2, 2018

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