Amritsar: Veteran Akali leader and former
chief secretary of the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee
(SGPC) Manjit Singh Calcutta died here today. He was 79.
He wsa not keeping well for the past few weeks and died
at a private hospital here, his family members said.
Calcutta is survived by his wife Santokh Kaur, son
Gurpreet Singh and two daughters, who live in Canada.
His cremation will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Calcutta had remained the education minster in the Badal
government when Panthic Sikh leader and SGPC president
Gurcharan Singh Tohra was alive.
Calcutta joined politics in 1955 when he was made the
national president of the Sikh student outfit -- All India
Sikh Students Federation.
He also remained the secretary of the Gurdwara Sri Guru
Singh Sabha in Calcutta which is now known as Kolkata.
Calcutta, a law graduate from the University College of
Law of Calcutta in 1966, came to Delhi in 1968.
In 1980, he became the general secretary of the Delhi
Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee during elections of the
management committee. He also became its president later.
During the lifetime of former SGPC chief Gurcharan Singh
Tohra, he was elected as national general secretary of SAD,
when Jagdev Singh Talwandi was party president.
In his decade-long stay in the SGPC, Calcutta was its
honorary secretary and chief secretary between 1988 and 2004.
He was elected as an MLA from Amritsar south constituency
in 1997 and became the minister for higher education when
Parkash Singh Badal was the chief minister and later resigned
when Tohra group separated from Badal.
Meanwhile, the Punjab government today declared a half-
day in the wake of the death of Calcutta.
Punjab Assembly Speaker Rana Kanwar Pal Singh and
ministers, including Tript Rajinder Singh Bajwa and Rana
Gurjit Singh, expressed grief over his demise.
PTI
