Relatives of Nandigram victims. (File picture)

New Delhi, April 2: The CPM has gone on the offensive on the CBI inquiry into the Nandigram firing, apparently bracing for possible adverse comments against party cadres in the agency’s report.

“What is a CBI inquiry? We never wanted a CBI inquiry. Our party wanted a judicial inquiry,” said a senior politburo leader.

The party also dismissed the allegation that its cadres had an active role in the March 14 bloodbath. “We do not believe there was any cadre complicity,” a senior leader said, adding that the issue had not been discussed during the politburo and central committee meetings in the capital.

Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, who has been at the centre of the Nandigram storm, emerged unscathed after the three-day meetings that ended today.

CPM general secretary Prakash Karat had earlier expressed reservations about a CBI inquiry into the police firing that left at least 14 people dead. “The high court, in its wisdom, ordered a CBI inquiry. We wanted a judicial probe,” he said.

That was in complete contrast to politburo member Sitaram Yechury’s remark a day after the Nandigram violence and before the CBI probe was to begin. To questions on who was responsible for the bloodbath, Yechury had said: “Wait for the CBI investigations to be over.”

However, the CPM soon realised the investigations were not going its way amid speculation that the CBI had unearthed evidence that put party cadres under a cloud of suspicion.

In an article in CPM mouthpiece People’s Democracy, politburo member Brinda Karat has come up with a novel angle. She believes the US could have had a hand in abetting the Nandigram violence because the “entire effort is to vilify and demoralise” the party.

“It is also not a coincidence that US officials in India held an unprecedented meeting with a leader involved in the mobilisation of the minority community in Nandigram. The CPM is categorically against a strategic relationship with the US, which is being pushed by the Indian ruling class and a section of the establishment,” Brinda alleged.

She said this was “reason enough for these “interests” to lend support to the anti-CPM forces.

The CPM leadership will tomorrow announce the amendments it wants to the Special Economic Zone Act. “We are discussing the forms of land acquisition and how to go about them,” said a central committee member.