Kolkata:
The Polit Bureau of the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M), the party's highest decision making body is meeting today in Delhi to discuss the party's performance in the recent Bengal and Kerala polls, but caretaker West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee is not attending the meeting.
Though the CPI-M claimed that the decision was prompted by violence on party activists in post-poll clashes, reports indicate that Bhattacharjee was very upset after the election debacle of the Left Front and needed time to regain his composure.
"Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee has been asked to stay back in view of the post-poll violence in several parts of the state. Our party workers are being made targets of attack. Arson and looting is on," CPI-M West Bengal unit secretary and Left Front chairman Biman Bose told media persons.
Bose also said there was no basis for reports that Bhattacharjee wanted to resign from the Polit Bureau.
Bhattacharjee has been keeping a low profile since Friday when the CPI-M led Left Front's 34-year-old marathon reign in the state came to an end with the Trinamool Congress-Congress alliance scoring a landslide win.
Hours after the trends indicated the front's rout; Bhattacharjee rushed to the Raj Bhavan and tendered his resignation to Governor M.K. Narayanan.
Coming out of the Raj Bhavan, he got into a vehicle provided by the party asking the driver of his official bullet proof car to go. Since then he has also refused a pilot car and is travelling in the party vehicle.
However, sources said the 67-year-old leader has decided to skip the meeting as he was very downcast over the drubbing received by the front as also his personal defeat in Jadavpur at the hands of former state chief secretary Manish Gupta.