Kolkata, Aug 3 - A colourful mass leader with a penchant for courting controversies, Subhas Chakraborty was a rare leader of a regimented Communist party who never shied away from airing views and acting contrary to the party line.

The scenes of inconsolable weeping at the AMRI Hospital where he died Monday morning at age 67 and the swelling crowds of admirers along the route from the hospital to Peace Haven, a funeral parlour, is testimony to Chakraborty's popular appeal, a yardstick to gauge the success of a public figure.

Gloom also descended in Kolkata's sports hub, the Maidan, and several clubs flew their flags at half mast. Chakraborty took keen interest in sports and was always seen in his wide Panama hat.

Although his party held the view that religion was the opium of the masses, Chakraborty advocated that Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) leaders should take part in religious festivals to maintain mass contact.

He offered puja at the revered Shiva temple in Tarakeshwar last year. Even CPI-M patriarch Jyoti Basu, otherwise a strong backer of Chakraborty in the party, disapproved of the Tarakeshwar act. But Chakraborty remained unfazed.

Very recently, in a televised interview, Chakraborty forcefully held that party bosses needed to contest elections to understand the public pulse well, a comment many interpreted as a snub to general secretary Prakash Karat.

In that interview, he also expressed his opposition to Karat's efforts to cobble a Third Front in the run up to the Lok Sabha elections. Chakraborty was publicly censured for his comments but the matter ended at that.

He also went against the party line of not observing the birthdays of living leaders by organising grand celebrations on Basu's birthday every year.

Time and again, during his uninterrupted ministerial stint for 27 long years, Chakraborty's comments caused a stir in the corridors of the CPI-M, but he escaped virtually unscathed.

Each time, the organisational bosses shied away from taking stern action against Chakraborty, partly because of the patronage of Jyoti Basu and largely because of his grassroot support base.