Front Page

CPI(M) resents Governor’s remarks

Kolkata: West Bengal Governor Gopalkrishna Gandhi “has once again out-stepped the Constitutional limit of the highest office of the State,” the State leadership of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) said here on Saturday. It was referring to a press release issued by Mr. Gandhi pertaining to the recent developments in the Nandigram area of Purbo Medinipur district.

Mr. Gandhi’s statement, released here on Friday evening, had said that “…no government or society can allow a war zone to exist [in the Nandigram area] without immediate and effective action.” It had also pointed out that “the manner in which the recapture of Nandigram villages is being attempted is totally unlawful and unacceptable.”

Mr. Gandhi’s public statement on March 14, in the wake of police firing and subsequent violence that had claimed 14 lives in Nandigram that day, had also not gone down well with the CPI(M) leadership.

What the Governor had to say in his latest statement “will only embolden the forces determined to destabilise peace and democracy in the State in a most undemocratic manner,” the CPI(M)’s West Bengal State Committee said in a hard-hitting statement. “The CPI(M) is pained” with the contents of his press release.

“What is expected of a Governor is impartiality; He [Mr. Gandhi] has failed to stay impartial”, Biman Bose, Secretary of the CPI(M) State Committee, told newspersons after an emergency meeting of the party’s senior leaders convened in the wake of the Governor’s statement.

“The Governor has been speaking on the need for restoration of peace [in Nandigram] but, at the same time, precipitating a situation that will only result in the breakdown of peace efforts and will only stir up fresh violence,” Mr. Bose said.

“This cannot be the function of a Governor…It is very sad [to see] the way the Governor went public [on the issue] without speaking to the State government…He might have spoken to many [as claimed], to some parties, but why did he not speak with us? We are a party, he could have talked to us,” Mr. Bose said.

“We are not at all happy [with what the Governor has had to say],” Mr. Bose said. “We have seen many Governors in this State; we are also watching this Governor,” he added. He was asked whether the CPI(M) leadership would appeal to the Centre for Mr. Gandhi’s recall.

“The Governor’s agony for the ardour of Deepavali being dampened could have been better appreciated if this was expressed during the Id and Durga Puja festivals when the TMC [Trinamool Congress]-Maoist combine was capturing village after village to evict people from there and attacking even refugee camps…..That the government was partially handicapped to respond was because of a situation precipitated by his earlier statement in March 2007. [But] all his concerns and conscience were triggered off to action only when the people forcibly displaced earlier started returning to their homes. This is what is termed a ‘recapture’,” the CPI(M) Committee statement said.

The Communist Party of India (CPI) deplored the Governor’s statement.

The CPI Central Secretariat said that thousands of people have been driven away by certain elements from their habitats in Nandigram and the state administration has not been allowed to carry out its functions. “If the Governor has any other report he could have taken it up with the State government, before going public,” the CPI said.

State PWD Minister Kshiti Goswami has expressed his intention to resign. He said he did not wish to continue in a government that had failed to justify to the people of the State its actions in Nandigram. Mr. Goswami, a senior leader of the Revolutionary Socialist Party, a constituent of the Left Front, will refer the matter to his leadership.

© Copyright 2000 - 2009 The Hindu