Benoy Choudhury

Benoy Choudhury (14 January 1911 – 6 May 2000) was an Indian revolutionary freedom fighter and politician, belonging to the

In 1930 he was sent to jail for his activities with Anushilan Samiti. Again in 1938 he was jailed for his involvement in Birbhum conspiracy case. He joined the Communist Party in 1938.^[1]

Elections

He filed his nomination for election from

Benoy Choudhury played a leading role in land reforms in West Bengal. Land reforms can be divided into two phases. In the first phase in 1967–1970, Hare Krishna Konar recovered around a million acres (4,000 km²) of land through existing legal means. In the second phase of land reforms in 1978–1982, Benoy Choudhury accomplished two major tasks. The first task was carried out under Operation Barga when around 1.7 million sharecroppers were formally recorded, assuring them of permanency of land holding and a fair share of the crop. The second task was the distribution of about a million acres (4,000 km²) of land earlier vested amongst 2.4 million poor and landless farm labor. Thus about 4 million people were directly benefited, laying the foundation for victory of the Left Front in subsequent years.^[4]

Later life

After retirement from active politics, he lived in a small rented flat in Bidhannagar, trying to make a living on the spouse's pension he received from his dead wife's account. She had been the headmistress of a school. Benoy Choudhury was well known for his frank talking. On 17 December 1995, when he was the second man in the West Bengal government he had imfamously remarked, "This is a government of contractors, by contractors and for contractors" & had also labelled the Jyoti Basu led Left Front government as choreder sorkar (government of thieves in Bengali).^[5] After his death, one obituary note read, "A poor man he had nothing to bequeath so he gave his eyes to the eye bank and his body to Calcutta Medical College for research".^[6]

References