The West Bengal government on Saturday said that it had not yet received Union home minister P. Chidambaram’s letter to chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee. A day after Mr Bhattacharjee denied any knowledge of any such letter, state chief secretary Samar Ghosh also gave similar reaction when asked if Mr Chidambaram’s letter
had arrived on Saturday. He said that even principal secretary and chief minister’s private secretary had not received the letter. State secretariat sources said that if the Centre sent any letter to the chief minister its copies were also sent to senior bureaucrats, like the principal secretary.
While Union home minister’s strongly-worded letter has come as a shot in the arms of the Trinamul Congress, it has apparently caused immense embarrassment to the Left Front government and the ruling CPI(M). CPI(M) state secretary Biman Bose virtually questioned the existence of the letter. “Unless the chief minister receives the letter how can we comment on it?” he said when asked for his reaction about the letter.
The party state secretariat member Mohammad Salim wondered why the letter which was purportedly written on December 21 did not reach its destination even four days later. “The wordings of the letter also raises serious doubts about its authenticity. Can the home minister of India use works like harmad vahini which are Trinamul Congress chief’s favourite expression?” he asked.
The Alimuddin Street satraps believed that the letter was leaked by the Centre to placate Mamata Banerjee. “She had become extra restive of late and was intensifying her pressure on the Centre. A beleaguered Congress facing crisis after crisis could not afford to antagonise her any further,” a senior CPI(M) leader said.