Prompt in Kolkata, sluggish in Nandigram: Cong taunts Left

NEW DELHI: Raising the pitch against the Left, the Congress has asked why the Left Front government in West Bengal, which called in the Army in ‘urban’ areas of Kolkata on Wednesday to deal with a "group of 200 protesters," had failed to take similar, prompt, administrative steps and precautions when large-scale violence was taking place in rural Nandigram. Why was Nandigram treated differently, the AICC asked.

Holding the Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee government responsible for the "failure of both law and order and public order in rural and urban West Bengal," AICC spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi said for a "meaningful reconciliation, the guilty should first own up their mistakes".

Maintaining that "democracy is uniform both in West Bengal and rest of the country", he said those who are in charge of the state should also recognise the fact that "right to dissent is applicable in West Bengal as much in New Delhi and elsewhere".

Picking on the CPM statement that many of its "innocent boys" were also killed in the police firing in Nandigram, the AICC spokesperson said the Marxists should first explain "why innocent people were killed at all in the state police firing."

Asked whether Article 356 should be imposed in the state if law and order and public order had failed, Mr Singhvi said his party did not think such an action would be the proper remedy to the situation as it should only amount to shift the responsibility of the failures.

He said the sate government should take immediate steps to normalise the situation. Asked whether the situation warrants the Centre sending an advisory to the state government under Article 355, he said it was for the Union home ministry to decide how to deal with the issue.