Tributes paid to Jyoti Basu

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The body of CPM leader Jyoti Basu in Calcutta on 17 January 2010.

Thousands of people in the Indian city of Calcutta have queued up outside a mortuary for a glimpse of communist leader Jyoti Basu's body, reports BBC.
Mr Basu died at the age of 95 Sunday after a long illness. Tributes have been pouring in from around the world.
He was chief minister of West Bengal state from 1977 to 2000 and led the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPM). Mr Basu was credited with restoring stability to the state, and bringing in land reforms.
In 1996 he was offered the post of prime minister in a national left-of-centre coalition, but his party chose to support the government from outside the coalition.
Mr Basu described his party's decision not to join the coalition as a "historic blunder."
The Communist-led government of West Bengal has announced two days of mourning in the state.
All state government offices are closed and the authorities have also requested private organisations to keep their offices closed Monday.
Thousands of people have gathered outside the mortuary despite the morning chill to pay tribute to Mr Basu, the BBC's Subir Bhaumik in Calcutta reports.
The body will be kept at the mortuary until Tuesday evening when it will be taken to the state-run SSKM hospital.
There will be no cremation - Mr Basu's body will be donated to medical research in accordance with his wishes.
Mr Basu was India's most respected Communist leader. "He was one of independent India's most able administrators and politicians. I often turned to him for his sagacious advice... which was statesmanlike, always pragmatic and based on unshakeable values," Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said.
"His death ends a chapter in the country's politics," former PM and senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader Atal Behari Vajpayee said. The Communist leader leaves behind a controversial legacy.
Though he undertook crucial land reforms in West Bengal state and empowered the peasantry, the state slid into industrial stagnation and the period of his rule was characterised by radical trade union activity.