Former West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee passed away at his Palm Avenue residence in South Calcutta on Thursday morning. He was 80 years old.
Bhattacharjee, the last Marxist Chief Minister of the state, succeeded Jyoti Basu and served until May 2011, when the Trinamool Congress came to power. He passed away around 8:20 a.m.
Bhattacharjee had been suffering from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease for a long time and had withdrawn from public life for over five years due to his deteriorating health.
His push for rapid industrialization is often cited as a factor in the end of the CPM’s 34-year rule, which saw two chief ministers, Basu and Bhattacharjee. His effort to establish a Tata Motors factory in Singur was met with strong opposition from anti-land acquisition movements in Singur and Nandigram, led by Mamata Banerjee, contributing to the fall of the Left Front government.
During the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the CPM released an AI-generated speech by Bhattacharjee urging voters to reject both the BJP and the Trinamool Congress.
Bhattacharjee was also a poet, translator, and avid reader, with Gabriel Garcia Marquez being one of his favorite authors.