'Chacha' Gyan Singh Sohanpal dies at 92

KHARAGPUR: Gyan Singh Sohanpal, popular as the affectionate "Chacha" of Kharagpur, passed away at SSKM Hospital in Kolkata on Tuesday. He was 92. His death marks the end of a six-decade political career from councillor to 10-term Congress MLA, including two ministerial stints under chief ministers Prafulla Chandra Ghosh and Siddharta Shankar Ray. Besides politics, he has also worked for TOI and other publications, covering news from Kharagpur.
Chief minister Mamata Banerjee expressed her condolences at the veteran legislator's death. The state government has decided to accord his mortal remains a gun salute. Chacha's body will be taken to Kharagpur on Wednesday, where his last rites will take place on Thursday.
Despite family roots in Punjab's Amritsar, Chacha belonged to Kharagpur since his birth. "I know every resident here by name. I received immense love from the people of Kharagpur that few in politics ever got," he had said in his last interview to TOI before last year's assembly election, the last in his electoral and legislative career, in which he lost to BJP's Dilip Ghosh. Kharagpur residents are grateful to him for the many development projects he had initiated in the town. Key among them is the Kharagpur State General Hospital at Chandmari, which became a reality following his request to Bengal's first chief minister, Bidhan Chandra Ray. Chacha is also credited with connecting Kharagpur with Kolkata by launch and several bus routes. The nonagenarian had seen it all in Bengal politics, which he had joined as a student of Midnapore College during the Quit India movement in 1942. He is certainly among the few Congressmen who shared a stage with Nehru, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi. Chacha's career spans the Bengal famine in the Sixties, the Naxalite movement, the Emergency and the rise and fall of the Left government.