As the 109th birth anniversary of veteran Marxist and longest serving West Bengal Chief Minister, Late Jyoti Basu was being observed in the Assembly on Friday, the BJP leaders remained conspicuous by their absence.

Slamming the saffron camp for their absence, state Transport Minister and Kolkata Mayor, Firhad Hakim, in his address on the occasion, quoted the words used by Basu once about BJP after the demolition of Babri Mosque.

Advertisement

“The observation of Jyoti Basu was that BJP is party of hooligans and barbarians. There can be differences in political ideologies and beliefs. But it is our duty that we all pay homage to the departed soul on such occasions,” he said.

Incidentally, Basu’s memorial event was held in a house where currently neither his party CPI-M nor the Left Front has a single representative after the 2021 Assembly Elections.

Assembly Speaker, Biman Banerjee, in his speech, lamented the total absence of the Left’s voice in the house. “I really feel bad that the Left parties, whose unquestionable leader was Jyoti Basu, do not have a single representative in the house. The Left Front ruled the state for 34 years. We had clashes of ideology with them. But still it is unfortunate that there is no Left voice in the assembly,” he said.

Referring to the positive sides of Jyoti Basu as a leader, Banerjee said that be it as a Chief Minister or as the Leader of the Opposition before 1977, Basu’s role as a leader was very constructive and positive.

“There are documents in the state assembly that Jyoti Basu travelled together with his predecessor and legendary Congress Chief Minister, Dr Bidhan Chandra Roy to New Delhi to voice the demands for West Bengal. He did not even hesitate to refuse the chair of the Prime Minister of the country following the decision of his own party. There lies his greatness,” the Speaker said.

State BJP leaders, however, refused to make any comment on the absence of their legislators on the occasion.