Singer Sandhya Mukherjee died at a private hospital on Tuesday evening. She was 90.
She suffered a cardiac arrest, said an official of Apollo Multispeciality Hospitals.
Mukherjee was taken to SSKM after she fell in the bathroom of her house on January 27 and then shifted to Apollo.
“She was diagnosed with Covid-19 and suffering from heart ailments and multi-organ dysfunction. She had fractures her neck. On Tuesday morning, her blood pressure dropped and she was shifted to the ICU,” the hospital official said.
“I can’t believe she is no more. She was recovering before her condition started worsening. She had recovered from Covid. I think she is a Bharat Ratna,” chief minister Mamata Banerjee told ABP Ananda.
The chief minister is curtailing her north Bengal tour to return to Kolkata on Wednesday.
The artiste’s last rites will be performed on Wednesday with full state honours, Mamata said.
“Her body will be kept in the hospital or Peace World tonight. Tomorrow, her body will be kept at Rabindra Sadan till 5pm,” she said.
Mukherjee got multiple awards. Last month, she refused Padma Shri.
Padma Shri “is demeaning for a singer of her stature”, her daughter Soumi Sengupta had said.
The singer, who had trained under Bade Ghulam Ali Khan, has sung for numerous Bengali and Hindi movies.
She worked with leading music directors including SD Burman, Madan Mohan, Naushad, Anil Biswas and Salil Chaudhury.
Her rendition of romantic songs in Saptapadi went a long way in cementing the box-office charisma of Uttam Kumar and Suchitra Sen.