Basu’s retirement plan irresponsible — Mamata

CALCUTTA, OCT 27: Union Railway Minister and Trinamool Congress leader Mamata Banerjee today came down heavily upon West Bengal Chief Minister Jyoti Basu for his plan to step down in the first week of November. “It’s a most irresponsible act on the CM’s part to relinquish office as the state has been devastated by unprecendented floods and the people are suffering from abject misery and deprivation,” she told reporters. “In fact, he should have first sought people’s mandate and then left,” Mamata said.

Mamata’s ally, the BJP, too supported her remarks and said that the CPI(M) patriarch “was, in fact, afraid of a terrible defeat in the hustings due next year” and this was the reason for his quitting. “On earlier occasions too, he issued similar statements but party pressure made him change his plans,” state BJP vice-president Muzaffar Khan told this reporter. “We don’t know whether he is serious this time or not, but even then it does not make much of a difference. Basu or no Basu, we will give the Marxists a run for their money in this election,” he added.

But the Congress was sympathetic about the octogenarian leader’s retirement. “He is old and sick and has been serving the state for the last 24 years,” Congress leader Saugata Roy said. “He has no achievement to write about but the fact that he has been there for so many years itself is an achievement. He deserves rest and his party should accept that,” Roy said.