West Bengal ex-minister Chhaya Ghosh dead

West Bengal's former minister and former Forward Bloc leader Chhaya Ghosh today died here after a prolonged illness, her family sources said.
     
She was 70 and is survived by two daughters.
     
The widow of a lawyer, she had been suffering from old-age related ailments since 2006 and died in a local private nursing home at 9.30 am, family members said.
     
Ghosh was the minister for relief from 1991 to 1996 and and also of agriculture marketing department from 2001 to 2005.
     
A former teacher of MMC Girls School, she was inducted into the party by late Hemanta Basu and was elected to the state legislature from  Murshidabad Assembly constituency in 1977, party sources said.
    
Her relation with FB soured after she was denied a ticket for the 2006 Assembly election which led her to join the Janabadi Forward Bloc, a breakway group of the FB. Her body will be kept at the Janabadi Forward Bloc office and cremated tomorrow.