New Delhi, July 21 (IANS) West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee skipped the crucial two-day meeting of the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) central committee which began here Wednesday, party sources said.
The meeting is intended to finalise the draft document for the extended central committee meeting to be held in Vijayawada Aug 7-10.
‘He is not attending the meeting. He is in West Bengal,’ a CPI-M source said here.
However, other senior leaders from West Bengal, including state secretary Biman Bose and politburo member Nirupam Sen, are attending, the source added.
Senior politburo member M.K. Pandhe Tuesday said: ‘Bhattacharjee has not informed us that he is not coming for the meeting.’
The West Bengal chief minister had left the last politburo meet, held in the national capital early this month, in a hurry.
Though party leaders then downplayed the issue, sources said Bhattacharjee was angry after the CPI-M general secretary Prakash Karat’s supporters criticised him for the Left Front’s pathetic show in the recently held civic polls even though the opposition Congress and the Trinamool Congress contested separately.
Bhattacharjee and a powerful wing in the CPI-M’s West Bengal unit have been cut up with Karat since the politburo decided to withdraw support to the Manmohan Singh government in 2008.
The chief minister strongly believes that Karat’s decision to cut all ties with the Congress over the India-US civil nuclear deal caused the Left’s rout in subsequent elections.
