West Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee met CPI-M patriarch Jyoti Basu at his residence here on Monday afternoon.
Keeping a studied silence after media reports spoke of his offer to step down in the wake of the Left Front's poll debacle, West Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee met CPI-M patriarch Jyoti Basu at his residence here on Monday afternoon.
The visit assumed significance in the backdrop of the severe drubbing CPI(M) and other Left parties received in the Lok Sabha elections and reports that he had offered to resign owning moral responsibility for the alliance's poor performance.
The chief minister, who skipped the crucial CPI(M) politburo meeting in Delhi on Monday, was closetted with the 95-year-old leader for 30 minutes at Basu's Salt Lake residence.
Although there was no official word on what transpired during the talks between the two leaders, Bhattacharjee was believed to have discussed with the former chief minister the party's worst-ever electoral performance - two years ahead of the state assembly poll.
For the record, Basu's close aide Joykrishna Ghosh said that the chief minister had enquired about Basu's health but "nothing more can be said about what they discussed".
Earlier during his visit to the state secretariat, the chief minister avoided media persons' persistent queries on his reported offer to resign on moral ground.
The chief minister skipped today's CPI-M politburo meeting in Delhi, preferring to stay back in the city ostensibly to oversee law and order situation in the wake of post-poll violence.
Some ministers such as finance minister Asim Dasgupta and law minister Rabilal Mitra were conspicuous by their absence at the Writers' Buildings.
The Trinamool Congress-led employees' union today paraded through the corridors of the Writers' Buildings and smeared each other with 'green gulal' in celebration of the victory of the party in the Lok Sabha elections.
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