Trinamool leader and former West Bengal Minister Abdur Rezzak Mollah passes away

Trinamool Congress leader Abdur Rezzak Mollah, a prominent agricultural figure, passes away at 80, leaving a political legacy in Bengal.

Trinamool Congress leader and former West Bengal Minister Abdur Rezzak Mollah passed away at his home at Bhangar in South 24 Parganas district on Friday (April 11, 2025). He was 80 years old. 

Mollah, a 10-time MLA who served as Minister in the Cabinets of Jyoti Basu, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and Mamata Banerjee, was a prominent agricultural leader. A former CPI(M) leader who liked to be introduced as a farmer, Mollah had major differences with former Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee over the land acquisition at Singur and Nandigram (for a Tata car factory and a chemical hub respectively). He had openly criticised the CPI(M)-led Left Front government on the issue.

After the end of the 34-year Left Front government in 2011, Mollah had blamed Bhattacharjee and the then industries Minister, Nirupam Sen, for the electoral loss. “Cannot catch a water snake, went for a cobra,” Mr. Mollah had said, criticising the former Chief Minister, after the party lost to the Trinamool Congress in the Assembly election.

Mollah, who was expelled from the CPI(M) in 2014 for “anti-party activities”, floated his own outfit, the Banglar Nyaybichar Party. He later joined the Trinamool Congress.

Mollah was a Minister in the Trinamool Congress government led by Mamata Banerjee from 2016 to 2021, after which he stayed away from politics because of old age-related ailments.

He was elected to the State Assembly in 1972 from Canning Purba and was a Minister for the Department of Land and Land Reforms in the Left Front government. The Trinamool Congress had appointed him as a Minister in-charge of Food Processing Department. A veteran leader from South 24 Parganas, Mollah was elected to the Assembly 10 times.

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee expressed condolences on the demise. “”I am saddened and shocked by the death of my colleague, Abdur Rezzak Mollah. He was my colleague in the State Cabinet. I respected and honoured him. His knowledge and experience in Bengal’s rural life, agricultural economy and land reforms were well-known. Therefore, even though he once practised politics of a different style, it was easy and natural for him to join the government of the mother-soil-manush [Trinamool ideology],” Ms. Banerjee wrote on X.