Calcutta, Aug. 1: The Left Front today condemned Mamata Banerjee’s dawn-to-dusk bandh saying it would send wrong signals to entrepreneurs eager to invest in the state.

CPM state secretary Anil Biswas said: “When Bengal’s industrial scenario is witnessing a turnaround, this bandh is the last thing people want.”

The CPM leader also charged Banerjee with making provocative statements to jeopardise peace in the state. People would reject “this illogical and politically motivated” bandh, Biswas said.

Yesterday, Mamata appealed minor front partners to support her bandh, called in protest against the proposed pre-litigation reconciliatory board bill that allows settlement of civil disputes at the grassroots level. She said the bill would help the CPM induct its own men into the village-level conciliation boards. The front Big Brother, she added, would not let the grassroot-level workers of the front partners have any say in such boards.

Tomorrow’s bandh would be the third this year. The first was also called by Mamata’s Trinamul Congress, on February 3, to protest against the government’s alleged move to impose tax on domestic animals and rural transport. Left trade unions had called the second, on February 24, as part of their protest against the NDA government’s industrial policy.

Observers said though tomorrow’s bandh is in protest against the West Bengal Block-level Prelitigation Reconciliation Board Bill, 2004, Mamata’s real aim is to breathe life into the Trinamul rank and file and rejuvenate her organisation. The party’s grassroots workers are still smarting from the humiliation of the drubbing in the Lok Sabha polls. Trinamul now has one Lok Sabha seat — that of Mamata Banerjee — out of 43 in the state.

Trinamul has fared poorly in polls over the past three years. The party, which had 190 MLAs earlier, won only 60 Assembly seats in 2001. In the rural polls in 2003, it suffered major reverses.

Mamata would keep an eye on her own party workers’ response to tomorrow’s bandh.

Expelled former party MP from Calcutta Northwest Sudip Bandopadhyay has already announced his switch to the Congress. Another former Trinamul MP, Bikram Sarkar, is set to join Sonia Gandhi’s party.

Mamata today said CPM cadre will carry Trinamul flags while unleashing violence during the bandh. Biswas ridiculed the possibility: “No one is interested in holding Trinamul flags.”