World | India
Left denies Jyoti Basu retirement at 93
At the age of 93, after 60 years of unbroken service, the grand old man of the Indian Left requested his retirement papers this week but was told by his comrades to keep working.
- The Telegraph Group
- Published: 00:00 September 16, 2006
Delhi: At the age of 93, after 60 years of unbroken service, the grand old man of the Indian Left requested his retirement papers this week but was told by his comrades to keep working.
Jyoti Basu, the Stakhanovite elder statesman of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) who came within a whisker of landing the Indian premiership in 1997, pleaded with his politburo to be given his peace.
After a leg injury sustained by a recent fall and a number of other ailments, Basu, who served as chief minister of West Bengal for a record 22 years, said it was time that he be allowed to retire to his Calcutta home.
Party congress
However, his comrades were not even prepared to give him an official retirement date. "We told him he has to continue until the next party congress in 2008. After that, we will review the situation," said Prakash Karat, the party's general secretary.
Basu, a middle-class Calcuttan who studied law in England in the 1930s, was first elected to Bengal's Legislative Assembly in 1946 after working as a leader of railway unions.
He was reportedly "unamused" to be denied his retirement request, coming as it did six years after he handed the chief minister's crown to Buddhadev Bhattacharya who has embraced economic reforms in the state. "I am feeling very weak at times these days," said Basu, as he walked past local journalists covering the Politburo meeting.
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