Gurudas Dasgupta with Kashmiri separatist leader Mirwaiz Umer Farooq; (above)the Bhangabera bridge in Nandigram, one of the sites of the 2007 land clash

New Delhi, Sept. 22: The ghost of Nandigram today came back to hound Left leaders.

Top CPI leaders were bombarded with questions on Nandigram when they came out in protest against security forces opening fire on stone-throwing demonstrators in Kashmir.

CPI leader Gurudas Dasgupta, a member of the all-party delegation that returned from the Valley, was the first to face the fire at a news conference he was addressing on Kashmir. “Where is the teargas and the water cannons?” he asked, slamming the Indian political leadership for purported “mistakes” committed since Independence.

Pop came a counter-question from a reporter that took the sting out of Dasgupta’s query: “What do you have to say about Nandigram? No tear gas or water cannons were used in Nandigram.”

After a brief pause, Dasgupta replied: “We have never justified the use of force in Nandigram.”

Finding that his comrade had been caught in an uneasy bind, CPI general secretary A.B. Bardhan sprang to his defence. “None other than the Prime Minister has said that non-lethal weapons should be used against protesters,” Bardhan said.

Dasgupta then picked up the cause of Kashmiri youths from where he had left off. “Police hardly open fire on protesters in Haryana or Uttar Pradesh. So why in Kashmir?” he questioned, going on to mention the recent farmer protests in Aligarh over land acquisition for the Taj Expressway.

Like a boomerang, a counter-statement flew back at Dasgupta. Like the Uttar Pradesh farmers, the people of Nandigram had been protesting against land acquisition too, a reporter said.

Dasgupta, then, lost his cool. “Don’t get parochial. Why are you going to Bengal? I just mentioned Haryana and Uttar Pradesh because they are closer.”

Bardhan stepped in again, urging newspersons to understand what Dasgupta was trying to say. He then repeated the Prime Minister’s statement on the use of non-lethal weapons.

After matters cooled, Gurudas spoke at length about the all-party delegation’s two-day visit to the Valley. Claiming the protesters’ grievances were not without reason, he said: “I told the separatist leaders that we supported a number of their democratic demands barring azaadi (freedom).”