Jyoti Basu: Marxist who almost became India`s PM
Kolkata: He was a Marxist to the core who was equally at home with bourgeois democracy and capitalist ideas. If destiny had been on his side, Jyoti Basu would have become India`s prime minister in 1996.
But that was not to be, thanks to his dogmatic Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M), which ruled that no one from its ranks could head a multi-party regime that would not be able to implement Marxist programmes.
Basu swallowed the diktat silently. But within months he questioned the wisdom of fellow Stalinists and described the party`s decision not to form the centre-Left United Front government as a "historic blunder".
Image: Veteran Communist leader Jyoti Basu greets well-wishers on his 91st birthday in Kolkata on July 8, 2004.
Text: IANS
Images: AFP
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