Buddha offers to quit party posts
Demolished by the Trinamul wave, Mr Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, who resigned as the chief minister on Sunday offered to quit from both politburo and the central committee of the CPI(M). Mr Bhattacharjee, himself lost to the Trinamul Congress candidate and his former chief secretary Manish Gupta by 16,684 votes. His resignation from the top bodies of the organisation has not yet been accepted by the Marxist leadership.
“Taking moral responsibility for the party’s and Left Front’s humiliating defeat, Mr Bhattacharjee offered to resign from both the CPI(M) politburo and central committee. The party leadership however rejected his offer to quit,” sources revealed. Mr Bhattacharjee, who has virtually gone into a shell following the drubbing will also be skipping the party politburo meet in New Delhi on Monday.
It was learnt that the outgoing chief minister is not in a mood to confront the party’s central leadership and general secretary Prakash Karat after the Assembly election debacle.
The Karat faction, desperate to save the general secretary, was now trying to put the onus on Mr Bhattacharjee and his “flawed policies” for the CPI(M)’s worst-ever electoral defeat in Bengal. Speaking against Mr Bhattacharjee’s land acquisition policy, former land and land reform minister Abdur Rezzak Mollah said, “Gariber katha bashi hole shotti hoe. Jodi amar katha shunto tahole eibhabe harte hoto na (A poor man’s words might sound stale but turns out to be true. If they had listened to me, they would not have been defeated like this)”.
During the Singur and Nandigram controversy, Mr Mollah had told the party that the state government shouldn’t forcibly acquire land from farmers. Mr Mollah was summoned to the party quarters and pulled up for going against the party line.
Ridiculing Mr Bhattacharjee for trying to get major investment for the state, Mr Mollah said, ”Hele dhorte pare na, keute dhorte gechhe (He who cannot even catch a harmless snake, tried to catch a cobra).”
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