Veteran West Bengal leader Abdur Razzak Mollah dies at 80; CM Mamata Banerjee calls it 'irreplaceable void'

NEW DELHI: Former West Bengal minister and veteran leader Abdur Razzak Mollah passed away at his ancestral home in South 24 Parganas on Friday morning.
The 80-year-old Trinamool Congress leader, who had been ailing due to age-related complications, breathed his last at his residence in Bankri village in the Bhangar area, party sources confirmed.

Chief minister Mamata Banerjee expressed deep grief over Mollah’s demise, recalling his contributions to Bengal’s rural and agrarian landscape.
“I am saddened and shocked by the passing of my colleague, Abdur Razzak Mollah. He was my colleague in the state cabinet. I respected and honoured him,” Banerjee said on X.

“His knowledge and experience in Bengal's rural life, agricultural economy and land reform were well-known. That's why, even though he once practised politics of a different ideology, it was easy and natural for him to join the 'Ma-Mati-Manush' government,” she said, calling his death an “irreplaceable void in the political life of Bengal.”

Mollah served as the Minister for Land and Land Reforms during the Left Front regime and represented the Canning Purba seat from 1977 to 2011. In 2014, he was expelled from CPI(M) over “anti-party activities” and soon floated the Bharatiya Nayabichar Party (BNP).
He was later expelled from the BNP as well for aligning with the ruling Trinamool Congress. Ahead of the 2016 assembly elections, Mollah officially joined TMC and won the Bhangar seat, following which he was inducted as the Minister for Food Processing.
Mollah's decades-long political journey spanned ideological shifts, but his deep connect with rural Bengal and his role in land reforms remained a constant thread in his public life.
He is survived by his family, and condolences have poured in from across the political spectrum.