Veteran CPM leader and the party’s central committee member, Shyamal Chakraborty, 77, breathed his last in Calcutta on Thursday.

Known as a labour leader, Chakraborty, a many-time MLA who had been Bengal’s transport minister and a Rajya Sabha member, had tested positive for Covid-19. He had been put on ventilator on August 1.

Condolences poured in from chief minister Mamata Banerjee, CPM general secretary Sitaram Yechury, CPM leaders Biman Bose and Surjya Kanta Mishra, Congress leader Abdul Mannan, among others.

He is survived by his daughter, actor Ushasie.

Expressing her grief over Chakraborty’s demise, Mamata tweeted: “Saddened at the passing away of veteran leader, former Member of Parliament and former Bengal minister Shyamal Chakraborty. My condolences to his family, friends and supporters.”

Yechury tweeted to mourn the death of a “friend and comrade”. “He was an astounding fighter for the rights of the working class and was a very able parliamentarian.”

CPM leader Biman Bose remembered his colleague as “a student leader, a labour leader and a mass leader”. “I was among his friends and he was one of my mother’s favourites,” Bose said.

Mannan said they had “ideological differences and yet shared a cordial relationship”.

A popular trade union leader, Chakraborty became a member of the undivided Communist party in 1959 and was elected as MLA in the 1981 bypoll and in 1982, 1987 and 1991. He had served as a member of the Rajya Sabha from 2008 to 2014. At present he was the state unit president of the CPM’s trade union wing, Citu.

Mishra added that all Covid safety protocols would be followed during the cremation.