20090526

Buddhadeb meets Jyoti Basu

KOLKATA,18th May: West Bengal Chief Minister, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, called on veteran Marxist leader, Jyoti Basu, at his Salt Lake residence here on Monday even as the Left parties were trying to come to terms with their dismal showing in the State in the Lok Sabha elections. This was the first time the two leaders met since the election results were announced on May 16.

Mr. Bhattacharjee had decided against attending the meeting of the Polit Bureau of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) in New Delhi, and instead chose to stay back in the city to oversee the post-poll law and order situation in the State, according to party sources.

Reports of violence have been pouring in from different parts of the State ever since the results were out.

Mr. Bhattacharjee’s meeting with Mr. Basu came amid reports in a section of the media that he had offered to resign as Chief Minister in the wake of the Left Front’s debacle in the State.

The reports were dismissed as baseless by Biman Basu, Secretary of the CPI(M)’s West Bengal State Committee in New Delhi where he had gone to attend the Polit Bureau meeting.

“I can say with authority that the Chief Minister has not spoken of offering to resign; neither did he discuss the matter with Jyoti Basu”, senior leader and secretary of the State Committee of the All India Forward Bloc, Ashok Ghosh told mediapersons.

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