Kolkata: Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee submitted his resignation as Chief Minister of West Bengal's sixth Left Front Government to Governor Gopalkrishna Gandhi here on Monday.

Accepting his resignation, Mr. Gandhi invited Mr. Bhattacharjee to become the next Chief Minister of the State and to form the new Council of Ministers. Till then, Mr. Bhattacharjee was requested to continue in office. The invitation to head the next government was in response to a letter to the Governor from Biman Bose, Chairman of the State's Left Front committee, stating that it had elected Mr. Bhattacharjee as leader of the Left Front legislators for the 14th West Bengal Legislative Assembly. This was after Mr. Gandhi had gone through the Election Commission's May 13 notification on the outcome of the recent Assembly elections in the State.

Mr. Bhattacharjee told Mr. Gandhi that he would submit names of the new Ministers on Wednesday afternoon, after which Mr. Gandhi will issue a notification appointing the Council of Ministers to be sworn-in on Thursday.

"As per formality I tendered my resignation to the Governor who handed me a letter asking me to continue in office till the swearing-in of my new Ministry," Mr. Bhattacharjee said.

The Communist Party of India (Marxist) State Secretariat met during the day to discuss the names of those who will represent the party as well as their portfolios in the next government.

Another round of discussions is to be held on Tuesday, said veteran Marxist leader Jyoti Basu.

The CPI (M) leadership had held separate meetings with the leaders of its major partners in the Left Front — the All India Forward Bloc, the Revolutionary Socialist Party and the Communist Party of India — on Sunday when the issue of allocation of portfolios was taken up.

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