Many of his party comrades, as well as colleagues in the Left coalition that holds power in the state, entertained fond hopes that Jyoti Basu would heed their appeals and consent to stay on as chief minister of West Bengal, at least until the state assembly elections, due middle of next year. But the patriarch of Bengal politics was determined to call it a day. But before doing that he had a strong agenda to push. Sources close to Basu say the 86-year-old chief minister had waited for one last victory—not in elections, not against his known political adversaries, but against a section of hardliners within his own party, who had effectively blocked the path to his becoming India's prime minister in 1996. At the special conference of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), held in the southern city of Trivandrum in October, the hardliners were routed. An overwhelming majority of the delegates supported Basu's thesis that "the decision to not participate in the central government in 1996 was a historic blunder". Thus the way, has been cleared for future participation by the CPI(M) at the central government in New Delhi.
Once the party endorsed the position he has often publicly asserted, Basu did not have much reason to stay on. His announcement of retirement was sudden, and even caught the party General Secretary Harkishen Singh Surjeet off-guard. Basu says he had good reasons to quit when he did. "My successor must have some time to project himself, because he is going to lead the party in the next elections. If I hang on, it is not fair because my health is not good enough to do justice to my job anymore," he told this writer in an interview.
In itself, this was a unique move by a unique man. Communists do not retire, he used to say, but by stepping down from office, he has created a unique precedent. "Basu is a shrewd politician. He wants the party to face no succession problems," says Ashok Mitra, his former finance minister who had fallen out with the old patriarch and resigned.
But another man who said he was fed up and resigned from Basu's government, is now at the top. The new chief minister of West Bengal, Buddhadev Bhattacharya, had resigned in 1993 as information and culture minister following factional squabbles. He then went on to write a controversial play Dusomoy(Bad Times), which was staged with some fanfare in a few Calcutta theatres. But Basu brought him back to the ministry, gave him additional responsibility as police minister, a charge Bhattacharya clearly did not enjoy, and has now got the playwright-politician to succeed him.