The Opposition-sponsored bandh in West Bengal passed off peacefully on Monday despite some stray incidents as train and road transport services were paralysed, state home secretary PR Roy said.
Even as the state and its IT hub at Salt Lake shut down, Governor Gopal Krishna Gandhi called on former chief minister Jyoti Basu and emerged to announce that he had ?full confidence? in Basu.
Gandhi, who had attracted severe flak from the CPI(M) on Friday for criticising the party over Nandigram, said: ??I have come to pay my respects to Basu and I have full confidence in him.?? ??I am sure that his initiatives will bring back peace in Nandigram,?? Gandhi said.
Asked if he would speak to chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, Gandhi said: ?The CM will talk to me.?
The Trinamool Congress? promise to bring the state to a ?standstill? worked, with the Congress also out in full support and the BJP and Socialist Unity Centre of India (SUCI) having called a 48-hour bandh without mincing words.
The situation is expected to be improve on Tuesday, with TC chief Mamata Banerjee announcing that she had never wanted a bandh or the common man to be affected. However, the Congress denying it had called a 48-hour bandh, and the BJP happy with one day.
The Trinamool will support the SUCI, which did not withdraw its call. Mamata said: ??Our party has not called any bandh but for a ?Bangla achal? (standstill) which means non-cooperation with the state government and not with the people.??
Bandh supporters set fire to a government bus at Moulali in central Kolkata and damaged two others in Esplanade and Hazra in south Kolkata.
Home secretary Prasad Ranjan Roy said a clash broke out in Cooch Behar district and seven to eight buses were damaged in different parts of the state.
Meanwhile, CPI (M) state secretary Biman Bose, who returned from Delhi today from a politburo meeting, said the government would not allow normal life to become paralysed.
A team from the BJP-led NDA is scheduled to visit Nandigram on Tuesday.
