Basu-Mamata duel over Nandigram and Khammam

Kolkata, Aug 3 (UNI) Justifying the March 14 police firing, CPI(M) patriarch Jyoti Basu today described the Nandigram agitation as ''undemocratic.'' Coming out with an angry retort hours later, Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee accused the veteran Marxist of deviating from his commitment to the people and alleged that his comments reflected the CPI(M)'s double standards over the incidents in Khammam and Nandigram.

A day after Left Front partner Forward Bloc described the Nandigram movement as democratic, Mr Basu made it clear that his party was of a different opinion and in no way would it equate this with the movement in Khammam, even though people were killed in police firing in both places.

'' None of us think that the Nandigram police firing was unjustified. The agitation there was undemocratic and the movement in Khammam democratic. There can be no comparison between the two,'' he told newspersons after attending the party's state Secretariat meeting.

He said Divisional Commissioner Balbir Ram, who inquired into the Nandigram incident, had said in his report that the police was forced to open fire. ''However, I do not know what the court will say,'' he said.

Observing that Nandigram remained a ''no man's land'' and a territory occupied by the Opposition, Mr Basu said a parallel administration was being run in the area with about 1,000 people still remaining out of home and incidents of looting, arsoning and imposing fines on CPI(M) supporters taking place regularly.

''A government within the government is existing there. But this can not go on...the government can not tolerate this,'' Mr Basu said, adding that more police would be sent to the area to handle the situation.

On the other hand, Mr Basu said, it was because the Andhra Pradesh Government had realised that the movement in Khammam was democratic that police personnel had been transferred and compensation announced.

Alleging that the veteran leader was being prompted by his party to come out with such comments, Ms Banerjee later told a news conference that it showed the CPI(M)'s lack of faith in democracy.

'' Can the blood of the Khammam victims be red and that of those killed in Nandigram black ? It is a double standard of the CPI(M),'' she said.

''Commitments cannot be changed like clothes. What Mr Basu says amounts to doing that..I recall him having admitted that CPI(M) people are attacking Nandigram from outside,'' she said.

While Mr Basu told reporters that compensation could be given to the Nandigram victims on humanitarian grounds, Ms Banerjee rejected such a possibility. ''The CPI(M) government has never paid compensation in any such case before. They are deceiving the people by speaking about it now,'' she said.(Eds. pls. pick up suitably from earlier series).

UNI