Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee was back in office today after spending a week-long vacation at Mong Pong forest bungalow at Siliguri. In his nine years of chief ministership, Bhattachjarjee never took such a long vacation.

The chief minister came to office at 11 am and left for home for lunch at 1 pm instead of his usual departure time of 1.30 pm.

But in the afternoon, he maintained his normal schedule, coming back at 4 pm and leaving office at 6.30 pm.

However, there was no visitor for him today nor did he preside over any special meeting. He had only routine meetings with Chief Secretary Asok Mohan Chakrabarti who apprised him of the general situation of the state. There is no visitor for the chief minister tomorrow either.

The chief secretary particularly apprised him of his trip to Singapore where he went to visit the Jurong Port, which has been hired by the state government as its consultant for the chemical hub supposed to come up at Nayachar in East Midnapore district.

Finance Minister Asim Dasgupta also met the chief minister, who looked refreshed but did not interact with the mediapersons who had been waiting in numbers to hear from him about his health and his trip to Mong Pong.

The chief minister had skipped three politburo and other party meetings and this fuelled speculations about him resigning from his post.

“The chief minister is physically fit and mentally alert. He is much better now that what he was 15 days ago. There was a lot of work pending and he worked all day clearing the files. For us the normal schedule of the chief minister has started again,” Subesh Das, principal secretary to the chief minister, said.