Chakraborty: Chided

Calcutta, June 6: The CPM state secretariat today censured its new member, Subhas Chakraborty, for speaking his mind in public about land acquisition, often at variance with the government or the party’s position.

Sources said both state party secretary Biman Bose and chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee today resented the transport minister’s recent outbursts.

“Bimanda asked him to keep shut on controversial issues. The reproach carried our collective opinion,’’ said a member of the reconstituted secretariat, which met for the first time today.

“Your comments are only adding to the Opposition’s ammunition. The party and the government are trying to cope with the adverse impact of the land row, which was a major reason for our setback in the rural polls,’’ a source quoted Bose as telling Chakraborty.

Emerging from the meeting, a grim-faced Chakraborty declined comment. “I am not the spokesman,’’ he said.

The party brass made room for Chakraborty in the secretariat, though reluctantly, after much persuasion by his mentor Jyoti Basu and to change the minister’s image of a “wronged man”.

Basu, who rarely misses the weekly meeting, was not present today.

Chakraborty’s penchant for courting controversy is believed to have resulted in his 31-year wait for the secretarial berth. But he left the party red-faced again, questioning the government’s post-poll policy of seeking a “consensus” before land acquisition in South 24-Parganas and East Midnapore, where the Trinamul Congress wrested the zilla parishads, and in Dankuni, Hooghly, where the CPM lost as well.

After the reverses, the party central committee had also said the “apprehensions over land acquisition must be removed”.

Chakraborty, however, felt seeking a consensus would be construed as backtracking on industrialisation and advocated confrontation. “Is it possible to get land by discussion? Those who think so are fools. The government has to acquire land with the help of the land acquisition act. If that leads to loss of lives, as in Nandigram, let it happen,” he said on Wednesday.

Earlier, he had trained his guns on state agencies for “running a land speculation business, acquiring land at throwaway prices from farmers and selling it at a premium”.

Bus fare hike

A hike in bus fares, if at all there is one, shall not be “more than 50 paise”, Chakraborty said at Writers’ Buildings.

The decision is likely to be taken “in two or three days”.