Durgapur, May 24: A poll-stung CPM has taken a leaf out of the Trinamul Congress’s book and forced work to stop at a state government coal-mining project, demanding better compensation for landlosers.

Some 1,000 villagers alle- gedly led by local CPM leaders stoned workers at the open- cast mine project in Bankura’s Borjora on Friday, demanding jobs for landloser families and cash for their farm labourers. One worker was injured.

Trinamul had earlier objected to the project with similar demands but with the CPM then in favour, 105 acres of the required 750 acres were acquired in 2007 and digging started last October.

Now CPM opposition has halted the project with 25 per cent of the work already done.

“We have stopped work since our workers are feeling insecure after the stone-throwing,” said P.P. Mishra, an official of Trans Damodar Coal Mining Project, a private firm hired by the government.

Aloke Mukherjee, Trinamul leader and Borjora gram panchayat chief, said: “The CPM is trying to hijack our agitation. We were agitating from the outset; now the CPM has placed the same demands. They are trying to copy us to improve their image.”

One perceived reason for the CPM’s poll debacle was its post-Nandigram image of land-grabber. The party is now desperate to acquire a “farmer-friendly” face.

The secretary of the CPM’s Borjora zonal committee, Tarun Raj, denied forcing the project to stop. “We submitted our charter of demands; we don’t know about Trinamul’s demands,” he said.

Bankura district magis-trate Sundar Majumder said: “The ADM will hold a meeting with the parties and project authorities in a day or two.”

The project was conceived after the state government appealed to Coal India in 2004 to mine coal in Bengal so that the steel and sponge-iron plants in Burdwan, Bankura, Purulia and West Midnapore had uninterrupted coal supply.

Most of the land in Borjora is multi-crop, and the government offered Rs 4 lakh to Rs 6.4 lakh an acre. The compensation package included jobs for those losing two acres or more, 3.5 cottahs of developed residential plot against loss of a house, and 25 per cent of the land price to the sharecroppers.