Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, the former the governor of West Bengal, passes away.
Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, a seasoned Communist leader and former West Bengal chief minister, passed away Thursday at the age of 80 at his home in south Kolkata.
Mohd Salim, the state secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), verified Buddhadeb's passing. Buddhadeb had been ill with diseases associated with aging.
His wife Mira and daughter Suchetana survive him, according to our correspondent in New Delhi.
The leader of the CPI (M) served as the state's chief minister from 2000 until the Left Front administration was voted out of office in 2011 following 34 years of uninterrupted rule.
In 2000, he took over as West Bengal's chief minister from party veteran Jyoti Basu. Buddhadeb lived a reclusive life, isolated to his home on Palm Avenue in Ballygunj.
He retired from the CPI (M) politburo and central leadership in 2015 before giving up his membership in the party's state secretariat three years later.
Mamata Banerjee, the current chief minister, came to power in the May 2011 assembly elections as a result of street protests and agitations sparked by the land acquisition strategy of the Buddhadeb government.
