Postal dept apologises for delay in Chidambaram's letter to Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee

The Postal department has taken responsibility for the delay in home minister P Chidambaram's letter reaching West Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee which created some commotion and apologised for the incident.

In a written statement, a home ministry spokesman said the minister's letter to the chief minister on the law and order situation in West Bengal was sent by Speed Post on December 22, 2010.

"It reached Kolkata general post cffice on December 24 at 6:00am. The letter should, therefore, have been delivered on the same day which was a working day," the spokesman said.

The spokesperson said India post general manager post Alok Sharma wrote to the home ministry on Monday and apologized for the delay in delivery of the "article."

Bhattacharya and his Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-M) had said it was regrettable that the contents of the letter were "leaked" to media even before the recipient had received the communication, apparently unware that a postal problem led to the delay in it reaching the chief minister.