KOLKATA: First, former Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee apologised to his partymen for criticising the bandh-culture of the party. Now, it is the turn of party secretary Biman Bose.
On the last day of the 23rd State Committee Conference, Bose regretted his tasteless remarks and gesticulation against CM Mamata Banerjee and the TMC-Congress alliance in 2011.
Bhattacharjee too promised his partymen that his anti-strike stand made at an industry meet in 2008 was incorrect. “What you all said was right and I realised it long ago... I’ll never make such a mistake in my life,” Bhattacharjee said on Friday.
While the CPM has blamed breakdown of its once-enviable party organisation for the electoral debacle in last year’s state Assembly elections, several mid-level party leaders faulted the attitude and behaviour of its senior leaders in recent times.
While the CPM said the entire party and not a few individuals were responsible for its political losses, voices within party lines had blamed hasty plans of industrialisation by Bhattacharjee and former Industries Minister Nirupam Sen, which distanced the masses from the party.
In the four-day state committee conference, the party chalked out future plans through rectification and better mass mobilisation. To send a positive message to the cadre regarding the party’s eagerness to put in place the ‘rectification drive’, the CPM left out party strongman Lakshman Seth from the state committee. Seth has been named as one of the key accused in the chargesheet on Nandigram killings and is currently absconding.