Report on Nandigram stirs a hornet’s nest - Deccan Herald - Internet Edition

Report on Nandigram stirs a hornet’s nest - Deccan Herald - Internet Edition


Report on Nandigram stirs a hornet’s nest
DH News Service Kolkata:
The question that has been doing rounds in the corridors of power is whether Chief Minister Buddhadev Bhattacharjee gave a green signal to Mr Roy to submit such a report to the High Court, which could potentially damage his own party.

The West Bengal government’s status report on Nandigram submitted to the division bench of the Calcutta High Court has stirred a hornet’s nest with chief secretary P R Roy accusing the CPM supporters, hailing from the villages bordering Nandigram, of triggering violence in at least three places. The question that has been doing rounds in the corridors of power is whether Chief Minister Buddhadev Bhattacharjee gave a green signal to Mr Roy to submit such a report to the High Court, which could potentially damage his own party.“I have written whatever I have gleaned as truth. If you doubt whether the chief minister is in the know of it, kindly ask him,” Roy’s sharp retort to the newspersons at the state secretariat on Saturday left little doubt over the fact that Mr Bhattacherjee had approved the report.


And since the filing of the status report to the division bench on Friday, speculation in the state’s political circles has almost reached the roof as to whether Mr Bhattacherjee is now determined to restore peace in the violence-scarred Nandigram, steamrolling all opposition from a section within the CPM.On three occasions, armed CPM activists mounted attack from villages neighbouring Nandigram, the report said and accused the Farmland Resistance Committee (FRC) members of involving in a bitter feud with their counterparts in the CPM over a prolonged period.This “admission” has run contrary to the contention of the CPM East Midnapore district leaders who have charged the FRC with fomenting trouble and misguiding the farmers at Nandigram where sporadic gun fire and bomb bursts continued to rock the fragile peace on Sunday.“I don’t know how this report has been prepared. The CPM activists were not responsible for any attack at Chandipur,” East Midnapore district leader Ashok Guria told Deccan Herald over phone from Khejuri.The home secretary directly blamed the CPM supporters for resorting to an attack on a team of intellectuals who were on a visit to Nandigram. The team members who later met governor Gopal Krishna Gandi, told him that post-Nandigram the CPM top brass had little control over the grassroots workers.The CPM Central Committee member Benoy Konar reacted sharply on the content of the report and said: “If he (Roy) had actually blamed our partymen for these incidents, I am compelled to say he is not the home secretary of the West Bengal government, but of the Opposition Trinamool Congress.”However, the Opposition Congress and Trinamool Congress have hailed the status report and congratulated the home secretary for “exposing” the Marxists for abetting the violence at Nandigram.“We’ll preserve the report and take it to the people to prove that we are for peace, but the CPM is not,” former WBPCC secretary Somen Mitra said.