Left Front likely to finalise date for all-party meet tomorrow

Kolkata, May 10 (UNI) Going ahead with the spadework for the proposed all-party talks to resolve the Nandigram tangle, three partners of the ruling Left Front today held parleys on modalities settling for a state-level meeting here shortly.

'' We have decided that first a state-level all-party meeting should be held and then the process would be taken to East Midnapore district,'' Forward Bloc State Secretary Ashok Ghosh told mediapersons after a meeting with the leaders of the RSP and CPI.

Mr Ghosh said yesterday the three partners had decided that a district-level all-party meeting would precede a state-level one.

''But we have found that there are several difficulties in going ahead with the process that we thought of,'' he said.

The veteran Forwad Bloc leader, who was apporached by Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee to convene an all-party meeting to stop the unabated violence in Nandigram, said they would talk with Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and other CPI(M) leaders tomorrow with the revised proposal and fix up a date.

The consensus that might emerge at tomorrow's meeting among all the Front partners, would be conveyed to Mamata Banerjee, who is now in Delhi.

Former Pradesh Congress President Somen Mitra and PCC leader Jayanta Bhattacharjee met Mr Ghosh at the Forward Bloc office during the day and proposed that a meeting at the state level should be held before an all-party meet in the district.

''We also wanted that the decisions to be taken at the proposed meeting must be implemented,'' Mr Mitra told newspersons.

In a boost to the proposed move for restoration of peace in the embattled Nandigram, the Left Front yesterday accepted a proposal of Ms Banerjee for an all-party meeting, to be convened by Mr Ghosh.

The decision was taken following talks among the top leaders of the Front partners after Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and Left Front Chairman Biman Basu readily agreed to the Trinamool leader's proposal, though it clearly expressed lack of faith in the CPI (M) and the state Government.

The Trinamool leader, who had been refusing to participate in any peace meeting unless it was called by the Governor, had telephoned Mr Ghosh on May eight requesting him to call an all-party meeting as the most senior leader in the Front.

UNI