Former West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee has passed away at the age of 80. Bhattacharjee breathed his last at his residence in Ballygunge at around 8:20 am, his family told India Today. He was suffering from age-related ailments. Bhattacharjee is survived by his wife Mira and daughter Suchetana.
Soon after the sad news of Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee's passing, West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee took to X (formerly Twitter) to pay her last respects. Banerjee said in her post that Bhattacharjee was ill and confined to his home in the last few years of his life.
Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee career
Before joining politics full-time, Bhattacharjee was a school teacher. He was a former member of the CPI(M) Politburo. During 34 years of Left's rule in West Bengal, Buddhadeb Bhattacharya was the second and the last CPI(M) chief minister who was in office for 11 straight years from 2000-2011, succeeding Jyoti Basu in office.
Bhattacharjee's family lived in a two-room apartment in Ballygunge for decades. He also operated as the CM from the same residence. The CPI(M) stalwart was renowned in Bengal's political circles for his frugal lifestyle.
He lost the 2011 assembly election to Trinamool Congress (TMC), putting an end to the CPI(M)-led Left Front rule in the state. He stepped down from the CPI(M) Politburo and central committee in 2015 and gave up the membership of the party's state secretariat in 2018.
During the last few years, he stayed away from public programmes and remained confined to his home. His last appearance was in Kolkata before the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. Bhattacharjee surprised CPI(M) workers by arriving unannounced at a rally in Brigade Parade Grounds with oxygen support.
Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee's economic policies, Tata Nano car project in Singur
Unlike the anti-capitalist stance of his party, Bhattacharjee had relatively open policies towards business. As the CPI(M) chief minister of West Bengal, he initiated industrialisation drives to attract investments and create jobs in the state.
Bhattacharjee is also known for brining in major projects, including the widely talked-about Tata Nano car project to the state. The aim of this project was to produce the world's cheapest car and Singur was chosen as the location for its manufacturing plant.
The Bhattacharjee-led state government acquired 997 acres of land in Singur for the project in 2006 and handed it over to Tata Motors to build the facility.The project, however, was scrapped in 2008 due to protests against land acquisition by the then opposition leader and Trinamool Congress (TMC) chief Mamata Banerjee.
On October 2010, industrialist Ratan Tata decided to move the Tata Nano project out of the state after a brief meeting with the then Chief Minister. When asked about the reason for moving the project out of Bengal, the industrialist had mentioned his frustration at the opposition movement led by Mamata Banerjee.
Due to the mounting protests and political pressure, Tata decided to shift the Nano car project to Gujarat. The land acquisition process led to various, with an arbitral tribunal awarding Tata Motors a compensation of over Rs 766 crore for the losses it incurred due to the Tata Nano car project's failure.