Former West Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee is scheduled to lead the CPM march to Nabanna, the new state secretariat where Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee shifted earlier this month.
The programme under the aegis of CPM leader Gautam Deb is seen as an effort to revive the party’s lot which had seemingly been nursing its wounds after repeated losses in various elections.
Bhattacharjee, who had refrained from attending even party programmes, reportedly to prevent facing uncomfortable questions regarding his policies that led to the ouster in Bengal, will be seen leading and addressing a public rally after a long time.
Biman Bose, CPM state secretary and chairman of the Left Front in Bengal, is also expected to attend the march. The march is being planned sometime in January, which CPM leaders feel is the opportune time to remind the state’s people of ruling Trinamool Congress “poor” governance, said party sources.
As an opposition leader, Mamata had led such rallies and marches on the old state secretariat, Writers’ Buildings, over the last three decades, including the infamous rally on July 21, 1993, during which 13 Youth Congress supporters were hit by police bullets in central Kolkata.
Buddha, who gained infamy as the chief minister that led to Left’s loss of face and power in Bengal, will be participating in such a programme for the first time in his political career, where the target is the leader of the state.
Sources in the Left, however, said that even though the march to Nabanna has received a green light from the party, the CPM and its allies are divided over organising such a programme, where they are directly taking on Mamata.
A sizeable section of the party, led by Deb, who is emerging the next firebrand leader in his anti-Mamata rhetoric, is eager to try out their luck with such a march.