Calcutta, Nov. 14: Ajit Panja, former Lok Sabha member and Union minister, died of cancer in a Calcutta hospital today. He was 72 and is survived by a son, a daughter and four granddaughters.

A widower, Ajit Panja had been shuttling between home and hospital since February. He had gone to Houston in March for treatment and returned to Mumbai in July. He returned to Calcutta in August and was admitted to a hospital on October 26 after his condition worsened.

Educated in Scottish Church College, Ajit Panja did his Bar-at-Law in 1959 and practised in Calcutta High Court and the Supreme Court. He was elected to the Lok Sabha six times from the Calcutta northeast seat and was twice elected to the Assembly from the Burtolla constituency.

Panja was the Union minister of state for planning from 1985-86. In 1986, he was made the Union minister of state for food and civil supplies and in the same year took over as minister of state for information and broadcasting.

Between 1988 and 1989, he was minister of state for finance. Again from 1991-95, he was the minister of state for information and broadcasting as well as coal. In 1998, he left the Congress and floated Trinamul Congress along with Mamata Banerjee. The following year, he became the Trinamul MP from Calcutta Northeast and was made the minister of state for external affairs in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government.