Buddhadeb to skip CPI(M) Polit Bureau meeting

Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee will not attend the Communist Party of India (Marxist) Polit Bureau meeting in Delhi as his presence is needed here with several incidents of post-poll violence in the State being reported, Biman Bose, State secretary of the party said on Sunday.

Dismissing as “rumours” suggestions that Mr. Bhattacharjee had offered to resign from the Polit Bureau in the wake of the CPI(M)'s debacle in the Assembly polls, Mr. Bose said:

“All these are rumours…stories made up by the media. The media cannot survive unless it goes forward with such story-making.”

Mr. Bose left with fellow Polit Bureau member Nirupam Sen for Delhi on Sunday evening. He said a delegation of the party will meet Governor M.K. Narayanan on Monday.

To submit memorandum

“Our delegation will go and protest this large-scale post-poll violence across the State. They will submit a memorandum to the Governor,” he said.

Stating that the Election Commission had not done anything to curb the violence, the party claimed that reports of attacks on its supporters and local party offices of the Left have been trickling in from different parts of the State, particularly from Purba and Paschim Medinipur districts.

Jiten Nandi, a local CPI(M) leader from Garbeta in Paschim Medinipur district was killed on Saturday. Even as a delegation of party leaders, including Suryakanta Mishra, had gone to Garbeta to condole his death during the day, news of another local leader of the CPI(M), Ajit Lohar, being killed in Saltora in Bankura district came in. Another leader, Samir Nag was seriously injured in a separate incident in the region.

Accusing the Trinamool Congress of hypocrisy, senior CPI(M) leader Mohammed Salim said supporters of the Opposition parties were indulging in violence.