<div style="text-align: justify; "><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Veteran politician and former minister Matia Chowdhury passed away at a hospital in the capital on Wednesday. She was 82.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">She suffered a cardiac arrest in the morning and breathed her last at Evercare Hospital around 12:57pm , said general manager of the hospital Arif Mahmud.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Matia, also a presidium member of Awami League, served as a Deputy Leader of parliament and elected MP from Sherpur-2 constituency during 2009–2024.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">She was the Minister of Agriculture from 1996 to 2001 and then again from 2009 to 2019 during the previous tenures of Bangladesh Awami League.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">She was born on June 30, 1942 in Nazirpur of Pirojpur district. She graduated from the University of Dhaka.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify; ">bnbd24/kh</div>