Nandigram on the back burner

KOLKATA: Operation Nandigram has been temporarily put on the back burner by the Left Front. It’s Operation Vote Snatch now. With a number of civic body and panchayat polls scheduled for next month, all differences between Left Front constituents over the Nandigram issue seem to have suddenly evaporated.

Elections to four civic bodies of Nalhati in Birbhum district, Cooper’s Camp in Nadia district, Panskura in West Midnapore and Dhupguri in Jalpaiguri district and elections to the Durgapur Municipal Corporation will be held in May. By-elections to a number of panchayat samities and gram panchayats will also be held in the same month.

West Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, who attended the Front’s meeting at the CPM headquarters on Alimuddin Street, also urged all Front constituents to strengthen the unity of the ruling coalition. Mr Bhattacharjee informed the partners that political process at Nandigram had already been initiated to bring back peace and normalcy in the area.

“The chief minister has requested all opposition parties at Nandigram to attend the peace meetings being convened by the district administration. In fact, he wants to fix the dates of such meetings after getting consent from the opposition parties who have so far been boycotting such meetings,” Front chairman and CPM politburo member Biman Bose told newspersons after the meeting.

RSP, one of the Front constituents, however, raised the Nandigram issue and alleged that clashes between two groups of people were still on in the area despite the Front’s effort to neutralise the situation by organising political meetings and rallies there. It is under these circumstances that the chief minister had informed the Front leaders that attempts would be made to convince the opposition parties to attend the peace meetings.

The civic polls and by-elections in May are important for the CPM in the light of the Nandigram and Singur developments. The opposition parties have already made the Nandigram development a national issue. The elections, though small and confined to certain districts, bear political significance as the people of West Bengal would be able to know how the rural and semi-urban population in the state will react to Nandigram development.

To woo the poorer section of rural electorate, the CPM has already decided to release the list of BPL (Below Poverty Line) population in the state.