July 14: Union home minister P. Chidambaram today referred to the absence of Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee from the Delhi meeting.

Chidambaram said he had asked the Bengal chief minister to reconsider his decision to remain absent “but he said he was preoccupied”.

“This question is udbhat (strange),” Bengal health minister Surjya Kanta Mishra told reporters, asked about the chief minister’s absence.

In Calcutta, Bhattacharjee had no other engagement but meeting Dr S.S. Badrinath of Sankara Nethralaya at Writers’ Buildings, sources said.

He, however, went through home department files “for the better part of the day” to prepare for the home budget, which was today postponed to July 22. “He would speak on the development in the Maoist-hit districts and the general law and order situation,” a source said.