Chaturanan Mishra (1925-2011). Telegraph picture

Patna, July 2: Chaturanan Mishra (86), a freedom fighter and veteran CPI leader, died at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi, today following a protracted illness.

Chaturanan was a rare Communist leader who openly supported the Mandal Commission recommendations and caste-based reservation in government jobs. In fact, his support to caste-based reservation earned him support of then chief minister Lalu Prasad. The CPI, in alliance with Lalu’s then party — Janata Dal — preferred Chaturanan as its candidate from Madhubani and denied ticket to his (Chaturanan’s) mentor Bhogendra Jha, the tallest of the Communists of that time.

Contrary to Chaturanan, Bhogendra was a die-hard opponent of Lalu despite the CPI and Janata Dal alliance. Bhogendra, demonstrating the communist way of thinking, opposed caste-based reservations tooth and nail and also staged a dharna in Parliament against the Rs 950-crore fodder scam, ahead of the 1996 Lok Sabha polls.

Using Bhogendra’s open opposition to the alliance, the CPI leadership — then under the influence of Lalu — fielded Chaturanan from Madhubani — a CPI bastion then.

Chaturanan for the first time entered the Lok Sabha and became Union agriculture minister in the H.D. Deve Gowda and then I.K. Gujral ministry. Chaturanan was the deputy leader when the CPI veteran, Sunil Mukherjee, was the leader of the Opposition in the Bihar Assembly in early 1970s. He won the Assembly polls thrice between 1969 and 1980. Chaturanan was elected to the Rajya Sabha in 1984 and 1990.

Chaturanan, actively participated in the 1942 Quit India Movement. He had to stay in exile in Nepal for some time. After his return to India, he was lodged in Darbhanga jail.

Born on April 7, 1925, in Nahar village in north Bihar’s Madhubani district, Chaturanan rose very high in the CPI’s rank and file and became the national president of All India Trade Union Congress — the party’s trade union body. However, in 1998, the CPI leadership dropped Chaturanan from its central secretariat ostensibly for “health reasons”.

But political circles speculated the party leadership snubbed him because of his “dalliance” with the caste-based politics of Lalu.

The late 1990s, the years of the “bonhomie” between Chaturanan and Lalu, heralded the end of CPI in the state, which was once the main Opposition party. Chief minister Nitish Kumar joined the CPI state secretary Badrinarayan Lal and other Communist leaders in mourning Chaturanan’s death. “It is a great loss not only for the state but also for the nation,” Nitish said in his condolence message, adding, “In his death, we lost a great freedom fighter and political activist.”