Life away from the limelight
West Bengal's former chief minister now heads CPI(M)'s complaints cell and spends his day answering letters
Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, the most important man in West Bengal during the last decade, has gone into a shell after an unprecedented drubbing at the last Assembly elections. The usually media-savvy former chief minister is adamant about not giving interviews to any media, including his party mouthpiece Ganashakti. "These days, he has become more accessible to the average party worker but has shut the door on outsiders, especially the media," says a former MP close to him.
The 67-year-old's daily routine hasn't changed much. At 10 a.m., Bhattacharya leaves in his WB-42-S0522 white Ambassador car from his small flat on Kolkata's Palm Avenue for the CPI(M) state headquarters at 31, Alimuddin Street, the nerve centre of Bengal politics for the last three-and-a-half decades. But unlike the posse of securitymen accompanying him everywhere in his heyday as chief minister, only three cars of securitymen now form part of his convoy.
"Most of his day is now spent in organisational work," says Mohammed Salim, a former minister and close Bhattacharya aide. "He is now in charge of the complaints cell of the party and keeps busy scrutinising and answering letters from various party units." "Most complaints are about internal feuds. However, he gets to answer serious political questions too, particularly about what led to the crushing defeat in the Assembly elections," says a former MP. "Classes to educate party cadre that became a thing of the past have been revived with new vigour by Buddha da," he adds.
Around 1.20 p.m., Bhattacharya readies to return home for lunch, exchanging smiles with journalists but ducking questions as he gets into the car and tells his driver, "Let's go". He is usually back for a second shift from around 4.30-8 p.m.
All the shuttling between home and Alimuddin Street in the months after the Assembly elections have been without a single stopover at Nandan, the cultural complex Bhattacharya would spend at least two hours every evening on his way home from Writers' Buildings when he was chief minister.
The man who penned Duhshomoy 'Bad times', a play that took potshots at corruption within the party, and resigned from Jyoti Basu's Cabinet calling the party a "house of thieves", is also writing for the Durga Puja special editions of all CPI(M) mouthpieces-Ganashakti, Nandan and Desh Hitoishi. The buzz is that the articles will focus on reasons for the electoral debacle and his prescription for a turnaround. Going by his past record of openly chastising the party on issues like bandhs and militant trade unionism, party insiders are keeping their fingers crossed on what he might come up with this time.