As a young barrister who embraced Communism, Jyoti Basu showed remarkable pragmatism in a dogmatic party that prevented him from becoming prime minister at the height of coalition politics.
Ninety-five-year-old Basu, called to Middle Temple, London, forsook the barrister's gown to emerge as a charismatic leader, who strode the Indian political scene for over five decades like a colossus, and was respected across the spectrum.
A political legend, Basu became the longest serving chief minister of West Bengal for 23 years from 1977 at the head of the Communist Party of India (Marxist)-headed Left Front government which in his last years in power showed it was ready to woo foreign investment and some market-oriented policies.
When coalition politics offered him the chance to become prime minister of the United Front government in 1996, his party the CPI(M) declined to took over power at the Centre.
He had described his party's decision of not accepting the prime ministership as a 'historic blunder', which was termed by his party, the CPI(M) as his 'personal view'.
An astute politician, able administrator, reformist and a record setter in many respects, he had the distinction of holding membership of the West Bengal assembly uninterruptedly since 1946, save a break in 1972.
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