Calcutta, Sept. 26: Today’s Forward Bloc decision follows an old tradition of Left Front ministers resigning or partners threatening a pullout on contentious issues.

Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee had himself resigned as information and cultural affairs minister in 1993 following “sharp differences’’ with then chief minister Jyoti Basu.

“Nobody could have imagined that Buddhababu would quit because of differences with Jyotibabu over certain government affairs. He told his aides he would never return to the cabinet and would instead prefer to spend his time writing poetry,” a senior bureaucrat said.

A year later, Bhattacharjee was brought back by Basu following a party decision and given additional charge of the home department.

“One line in a statement issued by the state committee informed the media that Buddhababu was being taken back,’’ a CPM central committee leader recalled.

Economist Ashok Mitra had quit the ministry as finance minister in the ’80s saying he “could not share Jyotibabu’s views’’.

“Mitra quit the ministry and gave up his CPM membership at one go because he failed to see reason in Jyotibabu’s style of governance. Jyotibabu used to think that Ashokbabu’s moves to blame the Centre for Bengal’s economic ills would not help improve Centre-state relations,” a senior official said.

In the recent past, RSP minister Kshiti Goswami criticised the government over its Nandigram “failure” and stopped going to Writers’. But about a month later, he resumed working at the state secretariat at the prodding of his party leadership, “though not ungrudgingly’’.

“I was not greedy for the trappings of power. I was in a mood to quit but my party wanted me to continue as minister,’’ Goswami said today.

The late cigar-puffing RSP leader, Jatin Chakraborty, had quit as PWD minister on the Bengal Lamp controversy.

“The allegation was Jyotibabu had prevailed over Chakraborty at (Basu’s son) Chandan’s insistence that Bengal Lamp be given orders from PWD,’’ an RSP leader said.

The CPI had in 2000 decided not to send its ministers to Writers’ after the CPM denied a Rajya Sabha berth to Gurudas Dasgupta. “Our decision was based on party principles,’’ a CPI leader said.

After about 10 days, however, the CPI ministers returned to work following an assurance that Dasgupta would get a ticket the next time there was a vacancy in the upper House.