Calcutta, Oct. 30: Priya Ranjan Das Munshi said tonight he has requested the Union home minister to make sure no central force is used in Nandigram.

“The reason is simple — if anything untoward happens in Nandigram, the central forces will be blamed,” Das Munshi told The Telegraph over the phone from Delhi.

He has “kept Pranabda (Mukherjee, external affairs minister) and the Prime Minister posted” about his letter to the home minister.

The information and broadcasting minister admitted that the Centre was bound to oblige states if they sought central forces to deal with “extraordinary situations”.

“But we are opposed to deployment of a central force in Nandigram because the state will pass the buck to the Centre in the event of an untoward incident there.”

The state government, he added, is “fully responsible” for the “continuous violence” in Nandigram.