Ajit Kumar Panja (1936–2008) was an Indian politician from West Bengal who served as a Member of Parliament in the Lok Sabha and held positions in the Union Council of Ministers of India. He was associated for most of his career with the Indian National Congress and later with the All India Trinamool Congress.
| Full name | Ajit Kumar Panja |
|---|---|
| Born | 1936 |
| Died | 2008 |
| Nationality | Indian |
| State | West Bengal |
| Profession | Politician |
| Political parties | Indian National Congress; All India Trinamool Congress |
| Office | Member of the Lok Sabha; Union Minister of State |
Panja was a public figure from Kolkata, West Bengal, and built his political base in the city. He represented the Calcutta North East parliamentary constituency in the Lok Sabha across multiple terms.
Panja was a long-serving parliamentarian elected to the Lok Sabha from West Bengal. As a Congress politician, he held junior ministerial responsibilities at the Union level, including assignments as Minister of State in the Ministry of External Affairs during Congress-led governments in the 1990s.
He later joined the All India Trinamool Congress, founded by Mamata Banerjee in 1998, and continued in national politics as part of that party. During the National Democratic Alliance period at the turn of the 2000s, he again served as a Union Minister of State, with portfolios that included External Affairs.
Panja was among the prominent Bengali politicians of his generation in New Delhi, known for representing an urban Kolkata constituency over several Lok Sabha terms and for participating in successive coalition governments at the Centre. His career reflected the political realignment in West Bengal in the late 1990s, when several Congress leaders moved to the newly formed Trinamool Congress.