Yechury

New Delhi, March 14: The CPM’s central leadership today regretted the Nandigram deaths but defended the police action, putting the entire blame on “outsiders” who it said were stoking trouble.

“The law is asserting itself. That is why clashes are taking place,” politburo member Sitaram Yechury told a news conference, signalling that the party stood firmly behind Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee.

Later, a politburo statement said: “It is regrettable that lives have been lost in police firing. But the organised elements who utilised bombs and pipe guns on the police have to take the blame.”

“The battle in Nandigram is not over land acquisition,” Yechury declared, forwarding an argument the party has used repeatedly since the Singur clashes. “Despite local resistance, outsiders had gathered there. A person had his leg cut off.”

By de-linking the violence from the land take-over, the CPM wants to suggest that the issue isn’t one of resistance by local farmers but of a plot by political adversaries, such as the Trinamul Congress and Naxalites, to destabilise the government.

“It’s a political assault. We will meet the challenge politically,” Yechury said. “This is not new for us. We have fought such political battles in the past.”

The CPM and the Naxalites had fought bitter and bloody battles with each other in the early 1970s.

Yechury spoke of bandhs and mass mobilisation campaigns. “Our kisan sabha has already called a bandh from 5 pm today to 5 am tomorrow.”

Politburo member Brinda Karat, too, spoke of “agent provocateurs”. She cited how the police in Bengal had desisted from acting for the past three weeks, adding that no government could remain inactive indefinitely.

The CPM central leadership had earlier justified the police action in Singur — and then explained the first round of clashes in Nandigram — citing the same ground of “outsiders” fomenting trouble.

But the Nandigram firing has embarrassed the CPM’s Left Front partners. CPI general secretary A.B. Bardhan left for Calcutta tonight to meet his Bengal colleagues and “take a decision later”. It wasn’t clear what decision the partners might take.

The CPI, RSP and Forward Bloc are upset with the CPM for the way it has been taking over land for its industrialisation programme. The CPM argues that the front as a whole is committed to the 2006 Assembly poll manifesto that makes industrialisation the grouping’s priority.