Mamata raises Nandigram issue in Lok Sabha
Wednesday 5 December 2007

New Delhi, Dec 5 (ANI): Trinamool Congress leader Mamata Banerjee today raised the issue of Nandigram in the Lok Sabha that lead to abrupt adjournment of the House for 30 minutes.  

Firebrand leader Banerjee came to the Lok Sabha for the first time in the Winter Session and raised the issue making certain accusations against the Left leaders.  

On December 4, three weeks after he justified the violent takeover of Nandigram by the CPI (M) cadres, the Chief Minister of the Left-ruled state of West Bengal, Buddhadeb Bhattacharya regretted his 'tit for tat' remark, which he had made in Kolkata. 

A few days after CPI (M) cadres took over the control of Nandigram after fierce clashes between the Left and the activists belonging to a Trinamool supported land protection committee, Buddhadeb had justified his party's cadres act by saying, "The people who suffered were paid back in their own coin." 

West Bengal Governor Gopalkrishna Gandhi on Sunday said the Buddhadeb Bhattacharya Government should honour the Calcutta High Court order on March 14 police killings here.  

On November 9, Gopalkrishna had said that the manner in which the 'recapture' of Nandigram villages was being attempted "was totally unlawful and unacceptable." 

"I find it equally unacceptable that while Nandigram has been ingressed with ease by armed people, on the one hand, political and non-political persons trying to reach it have been violently obstructed," he had said.  

A day after Gopalkrishna's remark, the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) said that the Governor had crossed the "constitutional limit of the highest office of the state." 

The Calcutta High Court, on November 27, had issued a criminal contempt notice to Left Front chairman Biman Bose for his remarks that the judiciary was taking biased stand on the Nandigram issue.  

Bose had said the court ruling that March 14 police firing in Nandigram was "unconstitutional," and a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe into it was intervention of judiciary into the work of legislature. 

The High Court, on November 16, had dismissed all petitions filed by the Buddhadeb Bhattacharya Government in connection with the Nandigram violence on March 14. 

The High Court, however, asked the State Government to give compensation of five hundred thousand rupees to the families of those who were killed, two hundred thousand rupees to women who were raped or molested, and one hundred thousand rupees to those who were injured. 

The West Bengal Government had planned to set up a Special Economic Zone (SEZ) for chemical industries in Nandigram, but had to abort the project as villagers refused to give their farmland for the project.  

The row saw violent clashes between residents opposed to the project and the communist supporters as well as police. (ANI) -AJ