New Delhi, May 12: The Union home ministry has asked both the state government and the CRPF headquarters for an explanation of the MP-officer standoff in Nandigram.

“We’ve asked both the parties involved to give us detailed formal reports. The relationship between the two (the state government and the central force) has been uncomfortable from the beginning,” a home ministry official said.

In Calcutta, the Bengal chief secretary denied being told to submit a report. “No such thing has been asked for,” said Amit Kiran Deb.

Sources in Delhi said su- ch a notice was usually sent to the chief secretary.

The Union home ministry had not been happy about the way CRPF personnel were being treated by the local administration. “Since the CRPF deployment, we had been getting adverse reports from its headquarters on lack of co-operation from the administration,” a senior official said.

However, the ministry also does not appear to be in a mood to condone what CRPF deputy inspector-general Alok Raj did.

Home secretary Madhukar Gupta met CRPF director-general V.K. Joshi today.

A ministry official said: “Raj’s seniors in Delhi were aware of the problems he had been facing there (in Nandigram). To bring it all out in the open like this is not really in a good taste,” the official said.

Although this may be the home ministry’s public stance, secretly, many officials were thrilled that the Bengal government had been “exposed in the conversation” between MP Lakshman Seth and the DIG.

“The administration had tried its best to make things difficult for the CRPF by not helping it with logistics,” the official said.

Firmly behind Raj, the CRPF said neither had he been removed from Nandigram nor was the force prepared to apologise for “lawful duty”.

“We have been lawfully deployed in the area and we respect a public representative. If there is a complaint, we’ll co-operate in any inquiry,” a senior official said.

Seth had alleged that the officer put his phone in the speaker mode and made their conversation public to malign him.

A CRPF source said a complaint could be lodged “for lack of transparency, not because of transparency”.

On election day, the final authority lies with the poll panel, which is autonomous, the official said. “The public representative could not have ordered the officer.”

The Centre made it clear that the state could not stop CRPF personnel from performing their duty of ensuring peace and law and order.

“The state cannot dictate terms and ask the personnel to stay in camps when it is their duty to be outside to ensure peaceful polls,” the home ministry official said.

Bengal has two battalions (or 12 companies) of the CRPF permanently deployed in the state. It had requisitioned four companies last November, particularly for Nandigram.

Last week, the state asked for five more companies for “law and order duties” during the panchayat polls.