A former veteran minister of West Bengal’s Left Front regime as well as with TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee, Abdur Rezzak Mollah, passed away on Friday at around 11 am.

His son Mostaq Ahmed told The Indian Express, “He was ill for more than a year. Today morning, he was sitting on his chair at his residence. Suddenly, he went through a brain stroke and before he could be shifted to hospital, he died.”

Mollah, who was 80, first became an MLA in 1972, and remained an MLA until 2021.

He was last elected as TMC MLA from the Canning (East) constituency in 2016 and became the Minister of Horticulture in Mamata Banerjee’s cabinet. He was the Land and Land Reform Minister in former CM Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee’s cabinet, and openly criticised Bhattacharjee’s land policy in the Singur and Nandigram controversy of the CPI(M).

He continued his criticism against his party’s land policy after its defeat in 2011. The party later expelled him, and before the 2016 assembly election, he joined the TMC.

After his demise, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee posted on X, “I am saddened and shocked by the passing of my colleague, Abdur Rezzak Mollah. He was my colleague in the state cabinet. I respected and honored him. His knowledge and experience in Bengal’s rural life, agricultural economy and land reform were well-known. Therefore, even though he once practiced politics of a different style, it was easy and natural for him to join the government of the mother-soil-manush. His death created an irreplaceable void in the political life of Bengal.”

She further wrote, “ I extend my heartfelt condolences to his family, countless followers, and well-wishers.”