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Nandigram disrupts Parliament

	March 26, 2007

Parliament functioning was affected last week by the uproar over the Nandigram incidents. The Lok Sabha adjourned a day ahead of the scheduled break on Tuesday, March 20. The proceedings last week as well as during the previous week were affected by the Opposition NDA clashing with the UPA-Left combine on the Nandigram issue. The picture was more or less the same in the Rajya Sabha. But unlike the Lok Sabha which cut short the pre-recess period by a day over the Nandigram killings, the Rajya Sabha adjourned as per schedule on Wednesday, March 21. The two Houses will resume their sittings on April 26. The post-recess Budget session of Parliament rescheduled in view of the coming Assembly elections, comes to an end on May 22.



Proceedings in the Lok Sabha were disrupted by a determined NDA for the fifth consecutive day on Tuesday. The house saw two adjournments for almost five hours over the issue and when it finally resumed its sitting at 4 p.m., then there was an uproar over the Cauvery waters dispute, forcing Speaker Somnath Chatterjee to adjourn the proceedings abruptly for 30 minutes and eventually till April 26.



Earlier in the day, the BJP and its alliance partners stalled the proceedings of the House after their demand for an adjournment motion over the Nandigram killings was turned down by the Speaker. The NDA blamed the Government for the deadlock. “It is unfortunate that the Government is not ready for a structured debate on the issue,” BJP spokesperson Sushma Swaraj said.



The first half of the session would also be remembered for the unusual spectacle of the Left and the DMK virtually coming to blows over the Government’s decision to house the Maritime University at Chennai. There was more unruly behaviour on show when BJP’s S.S. Ahluwalia charged at Finance Minister P. Chidambaram leading to Government and opposition members nearly coming to blows in the Rajya Sabha.



Parliamentary Affairs Minister Priya Ranjan Das Munshi expressed shock at the BJP repeatedly disrupting Parliament’s functioning. Addressing a news conference on March 19, he said the BJP appears to be not interested in discussing Nandigram or any other issue. Das Munshi said it was totally unacceptable and unparliamentary behaviour on the part of the opposition that the BJP leaders had their say on the Railway Budget and the General Budget, but when it came to Ministers responding to the points raised by them, the BJP did not allow them to speak. In the Rajya Sabha on March 19, Das Munshi said he had to rush to prevent the BJP chief whip S,S. Ahluwalia snatching the papers from the Finance Minister’s hand.





NDA wants President Kalam to visit Nandigram



Apart from disrupting Parliament’s functioning on the Nandigram issue, a delegation of the NDA met President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam on March 22 to apprise him of what they called terror unleashed by the West Bengal police and armed cadres of the state ruling party on Nandigram villagers on March 14. They requested the President to visit Nandigram, using his discretionary powers. It may be recalled that President Kalam had undertaken a tour to riot-torn Gujarat in August 2002, shortly after he had become the President.





CBI submits its report



The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) submitted its preliminary report on the police firing at Nandigram to a division bench of the Calcutta High court on March 22. Hearing in the report is scheduled for today, March 26. The CBI counsel submitted the report in a sealed envelope. The Bench will study the report and decide whether to give any further direction to the CBI when the matter is taken up for hearing.



Taking cognizance of the situation at Nandigram, the Bench headed by Chief Justice S.S. Nijjar had on March 15 asked the CBI Director to send a team of officers to Nandigram, collect relevant material on the police action and report back.





Left bickerings on Nandigram continue



There is no end to the bickerings within the Left Front in West Bengal on the police firing in Nandigram. CPI general secretary A.B. Bardhan, writing in the latest edition of party organ, New Age, said that the CPI(M) allies in the Left Front were taken aback by what he called “organised and brutal police assault” in Nandigram. He said the police firing in Nandigram was carried out with the “knowledge and consent of the leading section within the front, but without any consultations with other partners.”



Bardhan said the biggest partner in the Left Front had to mend its ways in running the Front and the West Bengal government, suggesting a fresh look into the issue of land acquisition, how industries come up, rehabilitation policy and special economic zones.





CPI(M) for judicial probe



The CPI(M) says that it favours a judicial probe into the events which led to the March 14 police firing in Nandigram. Party general secretary Prakash Karat said in New Delhi on March 19 that while the West Bengal Government was bound by the Calcutta High Court’s suo motu order for a CBI probe, the party was for a judicial inquiry because the March 14 incidents could not be taken in isolation. He said since January this year, there had been a series of incidents and it was necessary to go into all of them.



Karat said there is anarchy in the area and everyone had been taking the law into his own hands. While acknowledging that the local people had turned against the land acquisition move, he said the CPI(M) workers were driven out of the area now under the control of the Trinamul Congress and Naxalites.



On the opposition demand that West Bengal be brought under central rule, the CPI(M) leader said that the BJP preferred to use Art. 356 as a weapon to dismiss elected governments. Referring to BJP leader L.K. Advani’s remarks that he had never seen anything like what happened in Nandigram, Karat said Advani as Home Minister and an MP from Gandhi Nagar did not know what happened in Gujarat in 2002.





Congress for NHRC probe



The Congress team which visited Nandigram earlier this month, has called for a probe by the National Human Rights Commission and women’s organizations into the violence in the area, including the allegations of rape. It described West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee as the “main culprit” and attributed the Nandigram incident to the CPI(M)-led government’s “insensitivity and arrogance” But while trying to balance the interest of its West Bengal unit without rocking the UPA which gets outside support from the Left, the team did not call for the state government’s dismissal as it felt the incident was “totally local.”



In a parallel development, National Commission for Women Chairperson Girija Vyas wrote to Bhattacharjee seeking a full report of the incident and whether a separate inquiry was being held on the charges of rape of women.



The three-member Congress team - Digvijay Singh, Madhusudan Mistry and Sushila Tiriya - did not also demand the Chief Minister’s resignation while submitting its report to Congress president Sonia Gandhi. “Resignation is not our problem; it is the Left’s”, said Singh.





No question of Chief Minister’s resignation



The CPI(M) has made it clear that there is no question of Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee resigning even though he has come under fire from Left Front partners for what they called his inept handling of the Nandigram issue. CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat said in Kolkata, “the people of West Bengal have elected the Left front and Bhattacharjee is the Chief Minister of the Left Front government. He will remain so.”



Karat said there is no political crisis in West Bengal. Veteran CPI(M) leader Jyoti Basu reiterated the party view point on the issue on March 23 saying, “West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee has no intention of resigning. However, great may be the provocation, the question of Bhattacharjee’s resignation is absolutely absurd.”



But at a time when the CPI(M) is bracing up for a protracted legal battle on the Nandigram tangle, the state secretariat meeting on Friday discussed the possible fallout of the proceedings at the Calcutta High Court today (March 26) when the sealed CBI report is slated to be officially unveiled. Basu said, “After watching Monday ‘s developments, the party may consider appealing in the Supreme Court.”



Observers say it was largely Basu’s intervention that assuaged the feelings of the CPIM’s allies which had seen red at Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee’s handling of the Nandigram developments.



Basu did what the allies had wanted to do to Bhattacharjee. He slammed the chief minister, once his protege, on the police firing at Nandigram. In doing so, he absolved the allies of any responsibility for the failure of the government of which they are a part.





He also took things beyond Nandigram. The tragedy was a result, the allies complained, of the Chief Minister’s tendency to ignore them on important economic, political and administrative decisions.



Basu voiced their complaint and got Bhattacharjee to promise that the functioning of the government and the front would, henceforth, be truly collective. What happens to this promise remains to be seen.





Industrialisation will not be abandoned : Karat



CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat has said that the Left Front Government in West Bengal will not give up the industrialization policy. In an article in the latest edition of the party organ, People’s Democracy, he said it was time to reverse long years of de-industrialization. At the same time Karat said agriculture would be protected and developed further without any damage to the gains of land reforms.



The CPI(M) leader said the party would not be daunted by the opposition ranging from the BJP to the Maoists.