Buddhadeb skips politburo meet in New Delhi

New Delhi, June 5 (ANI): West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee didn't attend the politburo meet of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) which commenced here on Saturday after the party's defeat in West Bengal's civic body polls.

Senior CPI-M leaders including party's General Secretary Prakash Karat, and other polit bureau members Brinda Karat, Biman Bose, Manik Sarkar, MK Pandhe and Sitaram Yechury participated in the discussions which will resume on Sunday.

Bhattacharjee was conspicuous by his absence.

Yechury, a politburo member, denied the two-day politburo meet would introspect on the party's dismal show in the recent civic polls held in West Bengal.

"We will come back to you with what we have decided. There was a preliminary report on the municipal elections in West Bengal but the politburo decided that it would go into a review of these elections after the state committee makes its review. The state committee is to make its review during this month and once that is done, the politburo would go into that matter," he said.

The agenda of the meet is to discuss the preparations for the extended Central Committee meeting to be held in Vijayawada city in August.

Party Secretary Biman Bose brushed aside media reports that the civic body polls were a precursor to the state polls next year.

"We do not believe in concepts of semi-final and final. We are not sportsmen, and elections are not a sport. Those who take part in elections are not playing a game," chided Bose.

In the municipal elections held across West Bengal on Sunday (May 30), the regional Trinamool Congress party snatched the Kolkata Municipal Corporation from the Left Front and trounced the Marxists in most of the 80 other state municipalities.

In last year's April/May parliamentary polls, the Communists won just 24 seats, down from its score of 60 in the earlier house.

West Bengal, which has been ruled by the Left Front since 1977, is going to the polls in 2011 to elect a new 294-member assembly. (ANI)