Veteran Communist Party of India (CPI) leader Ardhendu Bhushan Bardhan passed away in Mumbai, Maharashtra. He was 92.

Mr Bardhan has been a leading figure of the trade union movement and Left politics in Maharashtra and a key figure in fostering relations between the Congress-led UPA and the Left in the early 2000s. Mr Bardhan entered the electoral politics in 1957 when he won as an Independent candidate in Maharashtra Assembly polls but there failed to achieve success in Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha polls.

He later rose to become the General Secretary and then President of All India Trade Union Congress, the oldest trade union in India. Among those who paid tributes to Mr Bardhan were Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Communist Party of India-Marxist general secretary Sitaram Yechury, BJP leader Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.

Will always remember Shri AB Bardhan as a passionate Communist, fully committed to his ideology & principles. May his soul rest in peace.

— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) January 2, 2016