GUWAHATI: Former Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee passed away at his Palm Avenue residence in south Calcutta on Thursday morning at the age of 80.
Bhattacharjee, who was the last Marxist chief minister of the state, succeeded Jyoti Basu and led the state until May 2011, when the Trinamool Congress came to power. He breathed his last at around 8:20 AM.
Bhattacharjee had been suffering from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease for a long time, which had led him to withdraw from public life over the past five years. His push for rapid industrialisation in Bengal is considered one of the factors behind the ouster of the CPM after an uninterrupted 34-year rule under both Basu and Bhattacharjee.
Notably, Bhattacharjee facilitated Tata Motors' establishment of an automobile factory in Singur, Hooghly, shortly after the Left Front returned to power for its final term. However, anti-land acquisition movements in Singur and Nandigram, led by Mamata Banerjee and a diverse coalition, eventually ended the Left Front's rule.
During the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the CPM released an AI-generated speech of Bhattacharjee in which he urged the voters of Bengal to reject both the BJP and the Trinamool Congress. An accomplished poet and translator, Bhattacharjee was an avid reader and counted Gabriel Garcia Marquez among his favorite authors.