Kolkata: Abu Barkat Ataul Ghani Khan Choudhury, veteran Congress leader and former Union Minister, passed away in a Kolkata nursing home on Friday morning. 

Ghani Khan was 78, admitted to hospital on April 3 with severe abdominal pain. He was suffering from acute pancreatitis. He was kept on ventilator support throughout but he died following multi-organ failure.

Many of his followers and senior party colleagues reached the nursing home on hearing of his death. The body was taken to the West Bengal Pradesh Congress Committee office, where it was kept for mourners to pay their last respects to "Barkatda," as he was popularly known.

The body shall be flown to Malda on Saturday and taken to his residence at Kotawali. The funeral is expected to take place later in the day.

The former West Bengal Chief Minister, Jyoti Basu, expressed grief over the death and offered his condolences to the bereaved family. Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee described Ghani Khan as a "distinguished colleague" and recalled his "invaluable services" in various capacities as Minister, MP, and member of various parliamentary committees.

Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, out of the city on electioneering, condoled his death. State Secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and Left Front chairman Biman Bose said: "Though he was my political opponent we had a very cordial relationship."
 
"It is a national loss," said Union Minister for Information and Broadcasting Priya Ranjan Dasmunshi.  His death had left a "void" in State politics, Trinamool