Rahul Gandhi writes to Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee’s wife highlighting his role as pragmatic politician

Kolkata: As the mortal remains of former West Bengal Chief Minister, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, were on Friday handed over to state-run NRS Medical College & Hospital for medical research as per his last wish, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi wrote to his widow Mira Bhattacharjee.

In the letter to Mira Bhattacharjee, the Leader of Opposition (LoP) highlighted how pragmatic a politician her late husband was.

In the heartfelt letter, Rahul Gandhi stated that the country has lost a person whose ambitious vision shaped West Bengal in profound ways.

“Shri Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee’s tremendous contribution to the Communist Party of India (Marxist) will be remembered. Not one to be tied down by ideological orthodoxy, he broke free from the past and worked towards transforming West Bengal,” the letter from LoP Rahul Gandhi read.

Mentioning the challenges faced by Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee in his attempts to transform West Bengal, Rahul Gandhi wrote, “While he faced many challenges, his integrity and conviction helped usher in a new era of development. At a personal level, his intellectual prowess and kindness will be missed deeply by friends and opponents alike.”

Political observers say that the observations in the letter by Gandhi were an acceptance of Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee’s path to industrialise West Bengal by attracting big-ticket investments, though his methods drew strong criticism both from the Opposition as well as from within the CPI(M)-led Left Front then.