As news broke this evening that Aveek Sarkar, who had reigned as chief editor of the Kolkata-based ABP group for nearly 30 years, had stepped down, former associates took to Twitter to express their sentiments. Journalist Vir Sanghvi, who edited the Group’s Sunday magazine for many years, and knew Sarkar well, tweeted: “Aveek Sarkar’s retirement marks the end of an era. Finest editor-proprietor in India and a wonderful human being. A great man. An institution.” The praise was fulsome, especially since the parting between Sarkar and Sanghvi had been bitter after Sunday shut shop in the late 90s. Sarkar, who will now be Editor Emeritus and Vice-Chairman of ABP (his brother Arup takes over as Chief Editor of the Group) is stepping down just a month after Mamata Banerjee roared into power for the second time in West Bengal. That was quite a loss of face for ABP as it had waged a relentless anti-Mamata campaign in the run-up to the polls. So were Mamata’s men crowing about the departure of Mr Sarkar? There was no evidence of that on Twitter at least. Trinamool MP Derek O’Brien, usually extremely reactive on social media, simply posted a letter he had written to Mr Sarkar in 2015. In it he had expressed his inability to continue as a quiz columnist in many of its publications because of the “ABP Group’s prejudices”. Was Aveek Sarkar then the pound of flesh Mamata had demanded to normalise relations with ABP? Watch this space.