On his 81st birth anniversary Saturday, the late Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee was remembered by some unlikely names. Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee and Trinamul general secretary Abhishek Banerjee shared a photograph of the former chief minister on their Facebook pages.

Bhattacharjee was Mamata’s predecessor at Writers’ Buildings when she led a Trinamul wave riding an anti-land acquisition tide against the Left Front government’s drive for industrialisation in Hooghly’s Singur and East Midnapore’s Nandigram.

The acrimony between then chief minister Bhattacharjee and Bengal’s then Opposition leader Banerjee is well documented. During the Singur agitation when her convoy was stopped in Dankuni, Mamata had come to the Assembly and accused Bhattacharjee, who was also the home minister, of throttling democracy in the state.

Despite the show of political courtesy the acrimony between the leaders of both the parties remains.

When Mamata went to take her oath on a May morning in 2011, Bhatatcharjee along with CPM veteran Biman Bose attended the ceremony at Raj Bhawan.

Trinamul spokesperson and former Rajya Sabha MP Kunal Ghosh also shared a picture of the former chief minister that he had clicked in Jakarta.

“His first birthday since he passed away. May he remain in eternal peace. Keeping aside the political differences and criticism of your style of functioning, the journalist Kunal Ghosh will always remember your affection and cooperation,” he wrote on his X (formerly Twitter) handle.

Ghosh later said the Trinamul was displaying political courtesy.

“We consider him [Bhattacharjee] a failed administrator,” Ghosh said. “We remain critical of his land and agriculture policies. We also want politics to be conducted in a healthy and beautiful environment. When he was ailing, Mamata di had visited him at his Palm Avenue residence and extended all help.”