CPI-M refuses Bengal government’s ‘gun salute’ offer for Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee

Kolkata: The CPI-M leadership, on Friday, announced, that they are not accepting the offer of “gun salute” for former West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, as announced by his successor and current Chief Minister, Mamata Banerjee, on Thursday.

Party insiders said that the decision has been to refuse the gun salute as a mark of respect for Bhattacharjee’s life-long inclination for a simple lifestyle in his two-bedroom apartment at Palm Avenue in South Kolkata.

Party insiders added that his family members, including his widow Mira Bhattacharjee, are also against any kind of ceremonial practice.

According to the CPI-M politburo members and the party’s Secretary in West Bengal Md Salim, the announcement of the gun salute has nothing to do with the party’s own programmes regarding the last journey of the former Chief Minister.

“Throughout his life, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee practised simplicity. So there is no question of gun salute,” he said.

Party insiders said that after his last exit from the then state Secretariat of Writer’s Buildings in 2011 as Chief Minister, Buddadeb Bhattacharjee refused to accept any kind of state government facilities to which he was entitled as a former Chief Minister.

“The words like luxury or extravaganza were never in the dictionary of Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee. He practised that since his last day being happy in his two-bedroom accommodation. So it is the wish of his family members as well as the party that in his last journey, the air of his unassuming lifestyle be respected,” a state committee member of CPI-M said.

During the last couple of years, he had been hospitalised a number of times. However, his doctors recall that whenever hospitalised, the former Chief Minister always insisted on an early discharge so that he could go back to his abode of peace -- his two-bedroom apartment.