Continuing its rift with the big brother CPI(M), the CPI on Monday said that the West Bengal Left Front government?s move to approach Supreme Court against the Kolkata High Court direction on Nandigram was a ?mistake?. The party also said that the state government should ?immediately? give ?proper? compensation to all the victims of ??Nandigram.??
The Supreme Court had allowed the CBI last week to continue with the probe on the March 14 firing in Nandigram. But it had asked the investigation agency not to file any chrgesheets against the West Bengal police personnel involved in the case. Objecting the state government?s contention that the firing was not indiscriminate, a Supreme Court bench had observed: ??Fourteen persons died and 160 injured and you call it a discriminate firing???
??The Supreme Court observations should really be an eye-opener to the government. It should have obeyed the High Court order and impartially distributed the compensation to the victims. The order was right and there was no need to approach the apex court,?? CPI national executive member Atul Kumar Anjan told FE.
CPI general secretary AB Bardhan had recently asked the CPI(M) to be more ??flexible?? and ??accommodative?? while dealing with its allies. With the Panchayat elections in West Bengal due in next May the open criticism by the Left partners are considered significant. The Forward Bloc, the second biggest party in the Left Front, had also said that it will fight the panchayat elections on its own. One RSP minister in the Buddhadeb Bhattacharya ministry had even threatened to quit the cabinet protesting the ?CPI(M) atrocities.? The move is also considered as the beginning of a ?collective bargaining? by the allies for more seats in the local body elections.
Anjan, also the secretary of the CPI’s farmers’ wing Kisan Sabha, had demanded Rs 5 lakh and government job for the families of those who had died in the firing. He had also asked the government to reconstruct all the houses in the area, which were gutted during the violence. The CPI(M) sources, however, said that all issues could be settled within the Left Front itself.