The last gentleman of CPI(M) West Bengal Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee (1 March 1944 – 8 August 2024) was an Indian communist politician, statesman and a member of the Politburo of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), who served as the 7th Chief Minister of West Bengal from 2000 to 2011. In a political career over five decades, he became one of the senior leaders of Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI(M)) during his regime.
Bhattacharjee described himself as a "communist compromising with capitalism" for promoting industrialisation in West Bengal, but his efforts were undermined by controversies. Poet Sukanta Bhattacharya was Nepalchandra's cousin. A former student of Sailendra Sircar Vidyalaya, Buddhadeb studied Bengali literature at the Presidency College, Kolkata, and secured his B.A. degree in Bengali (Honours). He then joined Adarsh Shankha Vidya Mandir school at Dum Dum as a teacher.
Political career
Initial career (1966–1971)
Bhattacharjee joined the CPI(M) as a primary member in 1966. Besides taking active part in the food movement, he also supported cause of Vietnam in 1968. In 1968, he was elected as the state secretary of the Democratic Youth Federation, the youth wing of the CPI(M), that was later merged into the Democratic Youth Federation of India. He served in the position till 1981, when he was succeeded by Boren Basu. He was mentored by Promode Dasgupta. Notably, he remarked that Basu's cabinet was a "council of thieves". He returned to the cabinet a few months later.
Following the 1996 West Bengal election, Bhattacharjee was handed the responsibility of the home and police department, owing to the declining health of the elderly Chief Minister Basu. In 1999, he was made the Deputy Chief minister of West Bengal.
Chief Minister of West Bengal (2001–2011)
thumb|Bhattacharjee in 2001
On 6 November 2000, he was elevated to the position of Chief Minister after the resignation of Basu. In 2002, he was elected to the politburo of CPI(M).
Bhattacharjee was elected Chief Minister of West Bengal and was sworn in in a solemn ceremony at Raj Bhawan. As Chief Minister, he led the CPI(M)-led Left Front to two successive election victories in 2001 and 2006. In 2001, the Left Front secured 199 out of 294 assembly seats and in 2006, it improved the tally to 235 out of 294 seats.
The tenure of Bhattacharjee saw major incidents of violence perpetrated by the cadres of the ruling CPI(M) like the Chhoto Angaria massacre, the Netai killings and the Dhantala case. There was also an escalation of Maoist attacks in the state, the most notable being the attack on a police camp at Silda, violence in Lalgarh and the Jnaneswari Express train derailment. Bhattacharya himself survived an assassination attempt by Maoists in 2008.
Bhattacharjee started an industrialisation drive in West Bengal to bring in more investment and jobs in the states. Under his government, West Bengal saw investments in the IT and services sector. Bhattacharjee described himself as a "communist compromising with capitalism" for promoting industrialisation in the state, though his efforts did not succeed to the extent he had expected due to ensuing controversies.
Notable among the invited projects was that of the production of the world's cheapest car, the Tata Nano, in Singur, a small town near Kolkata. Other notable proposals included the country's largest integrated steel plant in Salboni by the Jindal group. Another notable proposed project was a chemical hub at Nayachar, after it had faced resistance from farmers in Nandigram.
However, his plans were perceived negatively, and his party, along with its front partners, suffered heavy losses in the 2009 Indian general election. In the 2011 state assembly election, he was defeated at Jadavpur by the former Chief Secretary of his own government, and the Trinamool congress candidate Manish Gupta by 16,684 votes. He became the second West Bengal Chief Minister to lose an election from his own constituency, after Prafulla Chandra Sen in 1967. The Left Front saw a drubbing, securing just 62 seats out of 294. He resigned as Chief Minister on 13 May 2011.
Singur Tata Nano controversy and Nandigram violence
Events during his tenure as Chief Minister included attempts to industrialise West Bengal thwarted by the TATA's Tata Motors leaving Bengal in the face of the joint protests of the Trinamool Congress, Socialist Unity Centre of India, and Indian National Congress, the land acquisition dispute in Singur, the Nandigram incident, and the Netai incident.
In January 2006 the Supreme Court of India issued notices to Left Front Government ministers including Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and others in relation to land allotments made in the Salt Lake City township in Kolkata.
The Government of Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee came under heavy criticism for police action against demonstrators in Nandigram in East Midnapore. He was criticised not only by opposition parties (such as the Trinamool Congress, INC, PDS, BJP, CPI(ML)L, CRLI and others) and other Left Front coalition allies like CPI, RSP and AIFB, who threatened to back out from the ministry on this issue, but also by his mentor and the former chief minister of the state, Jyoti Basu.
On 15 March 2007, Basu criticised Bhattacharjee for failing to restrain the police in Nandigram. Bhattacharjee expressed regret for the shootings, but claimed that he permitted police action because Nandigram was an "area where there had been no rule of law and no presence of an administration for not one, two or 10 days but for two-and-a-half months, and many hundreds of villagers left Nandigram, and took shelter in a state relief camp outside Nandigram." Actually Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee declared that land in Nandigram would not be acquired by ordering the Nandigram notification to be torn apart. Still police were not allowed to enter Nandigram. Roads were dug up, preventing administration from entering the area. His government was also criticised by Left supporters for failing to protect the Left party workers (including his own party CPI(M)) who came under assault from political opponents - both right wing and ultra-left wing Maoists during the post-Nandigram turmoil until the end of 7th Left Front Government.
Electoral history
Bhattacharjee was elected as Member of Legislative Assembly from Cossipur (Vidhan Sabha constituency) once and from Jadavpur (Vidhan Sabha constituency) for five consecutive terms.
{| class="wikitable"
!Election
Year
!House
!Constituency
!colspan="2"|Party affiliation
! Result
|-
| 1977
|rowspan="8"|West Bengal Legislative Assembly
|rowspan="2"|Cossipur
|
|
|-
| 1982
|
|-
|1987
|rowspan="6"|Jadavpur
|
|-
| 1991
|
|-
| 1996
|
|-
| 2001
|
|-
| 2006
|
|-
| 2011
|
|-
|}
Later life
Despite his calls to be relieved of party responsibilities, Bhattacharjee was retained as a member of the Politburo and the Central Committee in the 20th party congress, organised at Kozhikode in 2012.
He was relieved of his posts on the Polit Bureau and Central Committee at the 21st party congress, organised at Vishakhapatnam in 2015. The party congress elected him as a special invitee to the Central Committee. However, he was persuaded to remain a member of the state committee and the state secretariat till 2018. In 2018, due to continuing ill-health he stepped down from the state committee and the state secretariat. He was later named as a special invitee to the state committee. In 2019, he made an attempt to attend a mega-rally at Brigade Parade ground in Kolkata, however, due to breathing difficulties he could not appear on the stage and remained seated in his car.
Padma Bhushan rejection
In January 2022, the Government of India awarded Bhattacharjee with the Padma Bhushan, the third-highest civilian award in India. However, he declined the award and claimed that he had not been informed about the award. He said a call was made to his residence earlier in the day, while adding there is no provision of taking consent for giving Padma awards.
Personal life
Bhattacharjee was married to Meera Bhattacharjee. Together, they had a child who underwent gender surgery and is now known as Suchetan Bhattacharjee. Bhattacharjee was renowned for his frugal lifestyle. He was also a scholar widely read and had acquaintance with literature of the world. Bhattacharjee was fond of dogs and had several pets during his lifetime, and was also seen feeding and petting the stray dogs in his locality quite often. He was an inveterate music lover and quite knowledgeable about Indian classical music. He also had a quiet and quite unexpected sense of humour. The family lived in a two-room apartment in Ballygunge, Kolkata. Bhattacharjee operated as Chief Minister from the same residence. Although belonging to a family of priests, Bhattacharjee was an avowed atheist, in accordance with the principles of communism.
Works
- Duhsomoy () (1993): Buddhadeb Bhattacharya's play deals with the communal tension between Hindus and Muslims in the aftermath of the demolition of the Babri Masjid.
- Biponno jaahaajer ek nabiker golpo (1994): Translation of The Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor by Gabriel García Márquez
- Ei aami Mayakovsky (1994): Translated works of Russian-Soviet poet Vladimir Mayakovsky
- Chilite gopone (1996): Translation of Clandestine in Chile by Gabriel García Márquez
- Hridayer shobdohin jyotsnar bhitor ( (1997): Anthology of literary criticism on poetry penned by Jibanananda Das
- Phire dekha (prothom porbo) () (2015)
- Phire dekha (dwitiyo porbo) () (2017)
- Nazi Germanyr jonmo o mrityu () (2018)
- Swarger niche mohabishrankhola () (2019)