Former West Bengal chief minister Siddhartha Shankar Ray on Thursday said that either chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee should step down voluntarily and recommend early Assembly polls or the Centre should dismiss the Left Front government and conduct elections under the President’s Rule.
Mr Ray was the last non-Left chief minister to rule Bengal from 1972 to 1977. Since then, the CPI(M)-led Left Front government is in power in the state. Ninety-year-old Mr Ray is known to have a soft spot for Trinamul Congress chief Mamata Banerjee. He went so far as to claim that the manner in which her party has been fighting the CPI(M) and defeating it in successive elections, the Trinamul Congress has emerged as the real Congress.
Commenting on the civic poll results, he said that it was a clear verdict against the incumbent government. “If I were in Mr Bhattacharjee’s shoes, I would have quit immediately. The people have made it unequivocally clear that they do not want the CPI(M) rule any longer. So what is he waiting for?” he asked.
Mr Ray said that if Mr Bhattacharjee did not resign, the Centre could invoke Article 356 and dismiss the state government and call for fresh elections. “The Centre can also invoke Article 356,” he added.