He served as minister of finance and excise in the Left Front ministry in the Indian state of West Bengal.

[1] He was the MLA of Khardaha constituency for twenty-four years until 13 May 2011, when he was defeated by FICCI secretary general Amit Mitra by a landslide 26,154 votes[2] in the 2011 Assembly Election of West Bengal.

He was one of the 26 ministers who lost his seat in the historic defeat of Communist Party of India (Marxist) led Left Front government.

[3] After taking over the charge as a minister of finance and excise from Ashok Mitra in 1987, he faced scathing criticism for his so-called 0-deficit budget.

Dasgupta admitted in an interview that 80% of the plan had been formulated under his tenure in the GST Council.