Thaindian News

Kolkata, Jan 18 (IANS) Veteran Marxist leader Jyoti Basu will be given a guard of honour and a gun salute on his last journey Tuesday before his body is handed over to a hospital here for use in medical research.
There will be no funeral and no last rites in keeping with Basu’s wishes. He had already pledged his body for medical research and donated his eyes.

Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) West Bengal secretary Biman Bose said Monday that Basu’s body will be taken out of Peace Haven - a funeral parlour in central Kolkata where it is now lying embalmed - at 7.30 a.m. Tuesday.

Announcing a revised schedule of Basu’s last journey, he said the cortege will navigate through Rafi Ahmed Kidwai Road, Park Street and A.J.C. Bose Road in the central part of Kolkata and reach the CPI-M’s state headquarters Muzaffar Ahmed Bhavan on Alimuddin Street around 8 a.m.

“The body will be kept at the party office till 9 a.m. All members of the party’s politburo, central committee, state committee, district-level party cadres and leaders of the state’s ruling Left Front will be allowed to garland the body and pay their last homage,” Bose said.

The procession will reach the state secretariat Writers’ Buildings at 9.45 a.m. and be there for the next 10 minutes.

The cortege will head for the state legislative assembly at 10 a.m. where the body will be kept till 3 p.m. for his followers and other people to pay their last respects.

“We will keep the body at the state assembly for almost five hours so that people, including political dignitaries from home and abroad, can pay homage,” he said.

Bose requested all state LF ministers and Lok Sabha members from the state to pay respects to the 95-year-old leader at the assembly.

The last journey will start at 3 p.m. and traverse through Red Road and Cathedral Road and finally terminate at the government-run SSKM Hospital on Harish Mukherjee Road.

Before the body is handed over to the hospital, a gun salute will be given to the former West Bengal chief minister at Mohar Kunj, earlier called Citizens’ Park, located close to the SSKM Hospital premises.

Bose said all members of the CPI-M politburo and central committee will attend the last journey.

Basu was the last surviving member of the party’s first politburo - CPI-M’s highest decision-making body.

A condolence book will be kept open at the Alimuddin Street party office for people to pay their condolences.