New Delhi: The BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) on January 24 sought to deride West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadev Bhattacharjee's apology that communists had made a 'great mistake' in wrongly evaluating Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose's patriotism and selfless sacrifice in freedom movement and said Left parties are given to making blunders and admitting long after.

"Buddhadev is no doubt a civilised person and this is an acknowledgement of one of the many blunders committed by the Communist party. He had selected a good occasion (Netaji's birth anniversary) for tendering this apology and doing so publicly," BJP president M Venkaiah Naidu told reporters in New Delhi.

Using the occasion for subtle derision, Naidu said the CPM (Communist Party of India-Marxist) has been "committing blunders from time to time. Taking an overall view of all their blunders like their stand on Quit India Movement in 1942, the 1962 Sino-Indian conflict, JP Movement, Swami Vivekananda and on poems of Rabindranath Tagore, they should apologise for all these mistakes."

He said the Left parties should admit to historical blunders even though they may not do so for political reasons.

PTI