Veteran Trade Unionist & CPI(M) Politburo Member Madhukar Kashinath Pandhe died

Veteran trade unionist and Communist Party of India-Marxist Politburo member Madhukar Kashinath Pandhe died of cardiac arrest in New Delhi on 20 August 2011.

Born on 11 July 1925 at Pune, Pandhe was the senior-most leader of the trade union movement in India. He had joined the Communist Party in 1943.

He completed his post-graduation from Pune University from where he earned a doctorate from the Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics. Pandhe, who was the Secretary of the Sholapur City Committee of the CPI, later took an active part in the Goa liberation struggle.

His singular contribution was to the trade union movement as a Secretary of the AITUC in the 1960s and then as one of the key leaders of the CITU of which he became the General Secretary from 1990 to 1999 and then its President till 2010.

He was elected to the CPI(M) Central Committee at the 10th Congress in 1978 and to the Politburo at the 16th Congress in 1998. He held these positions till his death. When the Communist Party split in 1964, Pandhe joined the CPI(M).

He led a large number of national-level unions, including the All India Coal Workers Federation, International Energy and Miners Organisation, and was a Member of Joint Committees in steel, coal, BHEL, BEL, Port and Docks, the National Shipping Board and the National Maritime Board.

Pandhe was associated with all the major working class struggles in the country in the last three decades and played a key role in bringing about the unity of the central trade unions.