Veteran playback singer Sandhya Mukherjee, also known as Sandhya Mukhopadhyay, passed away yesterday (Feb 15) after suffering a massive heart attack. She was undergoing treatment for COVID-19 infection since late January and yesterday evening, she breathed her last. Politicians and celebrities from the Bengali music fraternity took to social media to mourn the loss of the legend and one amongst them was West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.
Banerjee had taken to Twitter last night to mourn Mukherjee’s tragic demise. Today, February 16, 2022, she paid her last respects to the veteran singer. The news agency ANI shared photos of Banerjee at Mukherjee’s cremation. The full tweet read: “West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee pays her last respects to Bengali singer Sandhya Mukherjee in Kolkata. The iconic singer passed away yesterday.”
Yesterday, after hearing the saddening news of Mukherjee’s passing away, Mamata Banerjee had shared three tweets in her loving memory. Banerjee had revealed that she used to look up to the singer as an elder sister and the loss feels personal to her.
One of her tweets read: “Deeply saddened that Geetashree Sandhya Mukhopadhyay, the queen of melody in Bengal, is no more. Her departure creates an eternal void in our world of music and in the hearts of millions of her followers here and in the diaspora.”
“She used to be the moving spirit in our Sangeet Akademi and we had conferred upon her Bangabibhushan( 2011), Sangeet Mahasamman ( 2012), etc. We shall continue to pay our tributes to the departed genius,” read the rest of her tweet.
Sandhya Mukherjee was in the news earlier last month after she turned down the Padma Shri award.
The last 24 hours have been truly tragic as the industry lost two legends, Sandhya Mukherjee and Bappi Lahiri. The disco king of India died at Juhu’s CritiCare Hospital last night after suffering from OSA (obstructive sleep apnea). He was aged 69. CM Mamata Banerjee mourned his demise by sharing heartfelt notes on the microblogging site and offered condolences to his family.
