Former West Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, a communist who kept aside his ideological convictions to woo capital for the industrialisation of his state, passed away at his Kolkata residence on Thursday at the age of 80.
The Left leader took over as the chief minister of West Bengal in 2000 from party senior Jyoti Basu. He remained in the post till 2011, handling a tenure marked by agitations over land acquisition for industries led by present Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.
A quintessential Bengali 'bhadralok' with an incorruptible image, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee was last seen in public when he surprised party workers by arriving unannounced at the Left's rally at Brigade Parade Grounds in Kolkata before the 2019 Lok Sabha elections with oxygen support.
Ironically, one of the things that the CPI(M) stalwart will also be remembered for is the fall of the 34-year-old Left regime in the state in 2011, a political event that the Left could not despite Bhattacharjee's unconventional likes and dislikes.
Bhattacharjee was witness to the end of an era in which he helmed the longest democratically elected communist government but failed to lead the Left Frong to victory for the eighth time in a row in the highly politically polarised state.
Bhattacharjee, Unlike The Regular Communists
Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, the seventh chief minister of West Bengal, in his tenure worked to shed his party's anti-industry image and promote industrialisation to give a push to state's moribund economy.
Buddhadeb actively engaged himself in wooing investors and big capital to set up industries in the state with an aim of generating more employment opportunities for the youth.
Despite being a member of the party's powerful Politburo, he strongly denounced the politics of 'bandh' (strikes), a common Left parties' tool to register their protests on various issues. Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee drew both praises and criticisms within and outside the party, however his ambitious vision for rapid industrialisation became the nemesis of both himself and CPI-M, as Mamata Banerjee's TMC deftly capitalised on the anti-land acquisition protests.
The Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress (TMC) was able to dethrone the mighty Left Front in 2011 and push the communists to the sidelines of the state's politics.
'Brand Buddha'
What earned Bhattacharjee the moniker 'Brand Buddha' from the media was his persistent efforts for the industrialisation of Bengal. One of his greatest feats was attracting Tata Motors to establish a small car plant at Singur, a fertile agricultural area not far from the city.
However, it faced opposition from farmers, a key vote bank of the Left parties, and eventually became one of the key reasons for the downfall of the Marxist government.
Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee's tenure also faced the brunt of the movement at Nandigram, where, under the leadership of TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee, the agitation against the acquisition of farmland for an Special Economic Zone (SEZ) led to a major drop in Left front's vote bank. The police fired on protestors on March 14 in 2007, which resulted in the death of 14 people and queered the pitch for the Marxists.
His failure to take any decisive action to end Banerjee's sit-in near the proposed small car plant at Singur too went against him and led to Tata's departure from the industry-starved state in January 2008.
(with PTI inputs)
