India’s veteran Congress party leader Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi passed away today at a New Delhi hospital at the age of 72 while he was in coma since 2008.

‘He had been critically ill (particularly) since the past one month and succumbed to the illness at 12:10 pm,’ New Delhi’s Apollo Hospital said in a statement. It said Dasmunsi’s family members including wife Deepa Dasmunsi and their son were at his bedside at the time of his demise, reports the BSS.

India’s premier PTI news agency said the former Union minister was in coma since 2008 when he suffered a stroke and was hospitalised since then.

Dasmunsi was heading the All India Football Federation (AIFF) when he was taken ill, it said.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi mourned the demise of senior Congress party leader in a tweet saying ‘Shri Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi was a popular leader with rich political and administrative experience’.

Indian media reports said Congress President Sonia Gandhi mourned his demise calling him a ‘devout’ political activist and ‘one of the tallest’ leaders of West Bengal while he served the party and government ‘illustriously’ and ‘his work at the immense work at the grassroots would be remembered for posterity’.

She said despite his prolonged illness, Dasmunshi remained popular among his people and ‘his death is an irreparable loss to the Congress party and the country’.

His body will be taken to the Congress headquarters on Akbar Road here, where top party leaders including its vice president Rahul Gandhi will pay their homage.

West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee said that Bengal government offices in the state would remain closed on Monday from 2:00pm to mourn his death.

Banerjee said the last rites would be performed with gun salute at Kaliagunj in Kolkata.

‘He was in a state of coma, though he was alive but was unable to realize anything. Such a death for an active and popular leader like Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi is really painful, she said.