Bhattacharjee at the meet. (PTI)

Calcutta, April 5: Under fire from state allies over Nandigram, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee today won crucial support from the Citu leadership, so far seen as sceptical of his industrialisation drive.

“The Bengal government has taken the correct steps and should be the model for the rest of India,” said Kerala veteran E. Balanandan at a CPM function attended also by new Citu general secretary Mohammed Amin.

Balanandan, a Citu leader and CPM central committee member, is counted among the orthodox Kerala old guard, while former Bengal labour minister Amin, who has replaced the late Chittabrata Mazumdar as Citu general secretary, is not known as a zealous supporter of Bhattacharjee’s industrialisation drive.

At the function to commemorate 50 years of India’s first communist government, led by E.M.S. Namboodiripad in Kerala, Balanandan and Amin joined Bengal party secretary Biman Bose in drawing parallels between Kerala 1957 and Bengal 2007.

The CPM leaders alleged that the Trinamul-led Opposition was trying to do what the Congress and its allies had done in Kerala in 1959: create excuses for the Centre to sack the state government under Article 356.

“Mamata Banerjee and the BJP, as well as the Congress and the Naxalites, have joined hands to wage their bimochana samaran (liberation struggle) in Bengal just as the anti-communist forces, including the Church, had done in Kerala 50 years ago,” Balanandan said. “You should fight back the provocation.”

Bhattacharjee himself did not allege a conspiracy against his government but upped the ante against the “repeated abuse of the undemocratic Article 356 by the Centre”.

“It began with the dismissal of E.M.S. Namboodiripad’s first communist government, and the latest example was the effort to dislodge the Mulayam Singh government in Uttar Pradesh, both by the Congress,” the chief minister said.

Bhattacharjee said the party must “resolve” to complete the task initiated by the E.M.S. Namboodiripad government 50 years ago.

The job, he said, would be to complete the distribution of land among the landless and to increase agri-productivity and industrialisation.