Kolkata, Nov 10: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday spoke to her Marxist predecessor and arch political rival Buddhadeb Bhattacherjee for the first time in over three years and invited him to Kolkata Film Festival beginning today.
Banerjee offered the olive branch to Bhattacherjee, a film buff, by personally ringing him up and inviting him to the 17th Kolkata film festival which will be inaugurated by Bollywood superstar Shahrukh Khan and yesteryear's actress Sharmila Tagore tomorrow.
“I will be happy if you attend the inauguration of the film festival,” Banerjee told her predecessor. Bhattacharjee, however, said he was unable to do so as he would be away tomorrow.
Not to be put off, Banerjee said “I am sending you the invitation. I am also inviting your wife and daughter.”
This was the first time Banerjee spoke to Bhattacharjee since the failed Singur talks at the Raj Bhavan here on September 12, 2008.
Banerjee, the Trinamool Congress supremo, had seldom been on talking terms with Bhattacherjee except when the then governor Gopal Krishna Gandhi had invited them to Raj Bhavan in an attempt to settle the Singur imbroglio. At Banerjee's swearing-in as chief minister on May 20, where she had invited Bhattacharjee, the two had greeted each other with a ‘namaskar' without speaking.
