Congress and UPA partners are focussing on the flare-up in Nandigram in a deft move to push the CPI(M) on the back foot. While a UPA coordination committee meeting has been called on March 23, RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav has declared that a team from his party will visit Nandigram. Congress has condemned the police action saying “there is no justification at all for the firing that killed several people”. The CPI(M)’s increasing assertiveness had become inconvenient for the UPA—the latest case in point being the Marxist veto of President’s Rule in UP. Just a day after the DMK and CPI(M) members came close to fisticuffs inside the Lok Sabha, Nandigram has isolated the latter completely, with other Left partners, Congress and RJD taking a dim view of the events. SP leader Amar Singh was the only leader who came to the CPI(M)’s defence on Thursday, in a thanksgiving for saving his party’s government in UP, which was almost dismissed by the Congress with support from the RJD and DMK last month. Congress MPs from West Bengal met party chief Sonia Gandhi and made a strong plea that the AICC should take a serious view and depute a high-level delegation to the state to see for itself the situation at Nandigram. CPI(M)’s plea that Nandigram is a law and order issue is not cutting much ice as the party had already raised the issue of lathicharge on Gurgaon Honda workers in the Parliament. The West Bengal situation is expected to figure prominently at the UPA meeting scheduled here on March 23. RJD chief Lalu Prasad, after a meeting with Congress president Sonia Gandhi, stated that his party would raise the issue of land acquisition at the UPA meet. Yadav said his party favoured setting up of Special Economic Zones only on barren and unproductive land and not on cultivable land. A delegation of three party MPs would go to Nandigram for an “on-the-spot study” of the situation and would demand a compensation of Rs 10 lakh each to the next of those killed in violence.Although the Congress may not go to the extent of sending a delegation to West Bengal, it is not shying away from the opportunity to return favours to the ally. “Such extreme use of force by the police is condemnable and we do not accept the explanation that it was necessary for enforcing rule of law,” Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi said. A high-level meeting of the Congress discussed the matter and decided to wait till the next week before deciding on sending a delegation to the state. West Bengal unit has already sent preliminary reports and the high command is waiting for a detailed report.
