Bengal's last Marxist chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee passes away at 80 after prolonged illness

 During 34 years of Left Front rule in Bengal, Bhattacharya was the second and last CPM chief minister who was in office from year 2000 to 2011, for 11 consecutive years.

Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee

TT Bureau. Calcutta, 08.08.24 : Former Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee passed away at his Palm Avenue residence in south Calcutta on Thursday morning. He was 80.

Bhattacharjee, the last Marxist chief minister, succeeded Jyoti Basu and was at the helm till May 2011, when the Trinamul came to power. Bhattacharjee breathed his last around 8.20 am.

Ailing for a long time with chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases, Bhattacharjee had abandoned public life for over five years because of his failing health.

It was Bhattacharjee’s push for speedy industrialization of the state that is counted as one of the reasons behind the ouster of the CPM after an uninterrupted rule of 34 years, under two chief ministers, Basu and Bhattacharjee. Bhattacharjee had got Tata Motors to build an automobile factory in Hooghly’s Singur soon after the Left Front returned to power for what turned out to be its last term. The anti-land acquisition movements in Singur and Nandigram led by Mamata Banerjee and a rainbow coalition brought an end to the LF rule.

During the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, the CPM had released an AI generated speech of Bhattacharjee addressed to the voters of Bengal where he had urged the electorate to reject both the BJP and the Trinamul.

A poet and translator, Bhattacharjee was an avid reader and regarded Gabriel Garcia Marquez as one of his favourites.