Filmmaker Tarun Majumdar (top) and actor Badshah Maitra. (Amit Datta)

An interactive session with handpicked representatives of art and culture almost boomeranged on Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee when some of them bombarded him with questions about why the CPM had failed to keep its culture clan together.

“Why has there been such a sharp division among people involved with art and culture?” demanded Tolly actor Biplab Chatterjee at Kalamandir on Friday afternoon.

Bhattacharjee appeared startled by the question.

“We have always tried to work alongside intellectuals, artistes, actors… But it (the rift) somehow happened. Many of them have left us,” the chief minister said, pulling out the “us versus them” line.

Trouble had been brewing in the culture clan for some time before Nandigram prised it open. Big names from the world of art and culture hit the streets in 2007 to protest the death of 14 villagers in police firing in Nandigram on March 14 that year. The so-called exodus peaked after Mamata Banerjee offered the disgruntled lot a platform to speak out against the CPM.

The breakaway culture clan — some of its members are contesting the elections — has since been Mamata’s voice for change.

Bhattacharjee said he was not interested in doing a post-mortem of what led those who were once close to the Left Front to drift towards Trinamul.

“This is not the time to analyse the factors that led to the division. So I wouldn’t go into the reasons behind their move to shift base,” he said.

In the audience were theatre veterans Sova Sen and Debesh Roy, film director Tarun Majumdar, artist Isha Mohammad and Tolly faces Madhabi Mukherjee and Badshah Maitra.

Around 1,000 people had attended the 90-minute programme at Kalamandir, organised as part of the Left Front’s initiative to “reach out to various sections of society”.

Writers Sunil Gangopadhyay and Buddhadeb Guha, filmmaker Mrinal Sen and actor Soumitra Chatterjee were conspicuous by their absence. Just in case their absence was construed as an erosion of support, the chief minister read out letters from Gangopadhyay and Sen, saying that they couldn’t come because they were unwell.

If Bhattacharjee was forced to duck under the bouncers from the audience, there were some long hops as well. “What went wrong at Singur?” was one of the questions.

That one was hit for a six.

When another tough one — “Why were you so soft on the Opposition?” — got Bhattacharjee thinking, there were people to bat for him. Artist Mohammad and playwright Ashok Mukhopadhyay sprung to his defence.

“Many intellectuals have switched camps for certain benefits,” said Mukherjee.