Basu's last journey today to hospital anatomy room

KOLKATA: Jyoti Basu's final journey on Tuesday, which will be attended by a host of VVIPs -- including Sonia Gandhi, Sheikh Hasina, L K Advani and a number of top national leaders -- will not end at a crematorium, but in a hospital's anatomy room. The CPM patriarch follows a long line of luminaries, like industrialist SL Kirloskar, who donated their bodies to medical science.

That's not the only thing out of the ordinary in this last march. Basu's funeral will be unlike any ever given to a communist leader in India or any former chief minister. His body, draped in the Tricolour, will be carried in a gun carriage around Kolkata, with six Army officers marching alongside. It will end with a 21-gun salute, accorded to heads of state and given the last time to Mother Teresa. Then his son, Chandan Basu, in fulfilling a pledge made by his father on April 4, 2003, will hand over the body to the SSKM hospital. Basu's eyes had already been harvested soon after his death on Sunday.

Alimuddin Street, which leads to the CPM state headquarters, will run out of space for the VVIPs and stars pouring into Kolkata to bid Basu a last farewell. A host of Union ministers -- including Pranab Mukherjee, Sharad Pawar and Jaipal Reddy -- will also attend the last journey. So will former PM HD Deve Gowda, who got to the high office when Basu declined the offer.

The anatomy room of the SSKM hospital's Institute of Post Graduate Medical Education and Research, where Basu's body will be brought, was being cleaned up on Monday. A committe of doctors would decide whether the body will be mummified or the cadaver would be used for dissection and study of the human anatomy. There will be no religious ceremonies for the Marxist leader.

Jyoti Basu had decided to donate his body for medical research at the age of 88 when he wrote out the pledge. He said he was doing so in full consciousness and had two witnesses to his pledge.

Chief Ministers Omar Abdullah and Shibu Soren, RJD president Lalu Prasad, Telugu Desam chief N Chandrababu Naidu and Sharad Yadav of Janata Dal (United) and Sheikh Hasina, with a 40-member delegation, are arriving on Tuesday. Bhutan Foreign Minister Lyonpo Ugyen Tshering is also among the VIP mourners.

Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and CPM leaders have chalked a two-part farewell ceremony to accommodate the titans and also the masses. The Alimuddin Street HQ has been earmarked for CPM leaders and those from the Left Front, and the Bengal assembly for the VVIPs and the public. The last journey will begin from the assembly at 3.30pm.

The preparations will begin early Tuesday morning. At 7.30pm, CPM state secretary Biman Bose will take the body from Peace Haven to Alimuddin Street where the hearse will stay for an hour from 8am. CPM politburo members, members of the central committee and state committee and leaders of the Left Front will pay tribute to comrade Basu. Bose has appealed to the public to avoid Alimuddin Street.

The hearse will proceed for Writers' Buildings via AJC Bose Road, Lenin Sarani and Esplanade East, where Basu had addressed a thousand gatherings. A makeshift platform has been erected at the Writers' gates where Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and chief secretary Asok Mohan Chakrabarti will pay tributes to the longest serving CM in the country at 9.45am. All other ministers and bureaucrats have been urged to go to the Assembly premises, where Basu's body will be kept from 10am to 3pm.

Considering the security cover for the VVIPs, the Assembly secretariat has assigned the North Gate, opposite Town Hall, for them while the public will enter through the South-West Gate, opposite Eden Gardens. The body will be kept on a raised platform on the stairs at the western side of the Bidhan Sabha Bhavan.

The Army will take control at 3.30 pm and escort the gun carriage for the last mile. No outriders with half-mast flags will be allowed in front, as is the protocol. Instead, CPM flag bearers will follow on foot. Leaders will walk the 2km stretch via Red Road, Casurina Avenue and Queen's Way till it reaches Mohar Kunja - a park opposite Rabindra Sadan. Basu's son Chandan will then hand over the body to SSKM authorities.

The march will remain out of bounds for the public. Three hundred policemen will escort the body, including two strike force teams. Over 2,000 police personnel will be on duty.