Buddhadeb skips politburo meeting

New Delhi, May 18 (PTI) Chief Minister of India's
eastern state of West Bengal Buddhadeb Bhattarcharjee Monday
skipped the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) politburo
meeting here amid reports that he has offered to quit
following the poll debacle in the state but this was rubbished
by a senior leader.

Bhattacharjee, who alongwith veteran leader Jyoti Basu
had voiced their reservations over the Left decision to
withdraw support to the United Progressive Alliance (UPA)
government over the Indo-US nuclear deal issue, is said to be
upset over the party rout in the state.

For the record, politburo member and Left Front
chairman Biman Bose described the reports on Bhattacharjee
offering to step down as "rubbish".

"Bhattacharjee is not attending the meeting as he has
informed the party that he cannot leave Kolkata due to the
prevailing post-poll law and order situation," party sources
said.

Besides Bose, those attending the meeting are CPIM
general secretary Prakash Karat, Sitaram Yechury, Nirupam Sen,
Pinarayi Vijayan, M K Pandhe, S R Pillai and Chief Ministers
of Kerala and Tripura, V S Achuthanandan and Manik Sarkar
respectively.

The sources said the politburo would do "serious
introspection" of the causes of their poll debacle, especially
in their citadels of eastern state of West Bengal and southern
state of Kerala which face assembly elections in another two
years.

The meeting took place amid reports that some of the
senior leaders from West Bengal have raised questions over the
leadership of Karat.

Karat is being squarely blamed for taking a stubborn
stand on on the nuclear deal issue and his "miscalculation"
in pushing for a Third Front which, they feel, resulted in the
dismal showing of the CPI-M and the Left Front which has seen
its numbers dip from 59 in the outgoing Lok Sabha (Lower
House of Parlaiment) to 24.

While the CPI-M numbers have gone down from 43 to 16 in
this election, the Communist Party of India (CPI) has bagged
four with two each by the Revolutionary Socialist Party and
the All India Forward Bloc.

The factors responsible for the massive rout are likely
to come up for discussion in the CPI(M) body, the most
important among them being the "failure" of the party's
political organisation in the two states, party sources said.

The other issues could range from land acquisition for
industries, corruption and infighting to national issues like
forging of alliance with parties which do not matter much in
the two states, they said. PTI