Ajit Panja dies of cancer

Former Union minister and senior Trinamool Congress leader Ajit Panja died of oral cancer at a private hospital here early today. He was 72 and is survived by a son and a daughter. Panja, who was treated abroad earlier, was admitted to the hospital on October 26.

Hospital sources said he breathed his last at 4.30 am. Panja, who started his political career in the Congress and was elected to the Bengal Assembly for the first time in 1971, held a number of portfolios in the Rajiv Gandhi and Narasimha Rao governments.