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Has Nandigram become a political battleground?
Published on Sun, Nov 18, 2007 at 07:31, Updated at Sun, Nov 18, 2007 in 
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TAKE STOCK: The panel agreed that it’s time to introspect on why the Nandigram issue went out of control.
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Over 24 people were injured in a grenade blast near Banihal in Jammu.
New Delhi: Over the last week CPM cadres went on a rampage in a bid to regain their supremacy over Nandigram in West Bengal. With several people gunned down, homes vandalised, and women gang-raped, this episode was certainly the CPM's moment of shame and a controversy the Left government in Bengal is finding difficult to handle.
So, has Nandigram become a political battleground? That was the topic of debate on CNN-IBN show The Big News with Rajdeep Sardesai.
On the panel of experts were chief of Trinamool Congress Mamata Banerjee and Professor of Economics at Jawahar Lal Nehru University Jayati Ghosh.
It all started in August last year, with the West Bengal government giving the green signal to the Salim Group, a petrochemical giant, to set up a Special Economic Zone, the land for which was to be acquired from 29 villages, most of them in Nandigram.
Little did the CPI-M led government know that their business-friendly policies would wreak havoc in the otherwise peaceful area.
Meanwhile, Nandigram's farmers, fearing forced eviction, decided to resist. The Bhumi Uchched Pratirodh Committee (BUPC) consisting of farmers and backed by the opposition, Trinamool Congress, was formed to resist the land acquisition. What followed in the next nine months is brutal violence that completely went out of the state government’s hands.
Many intellectuals in Delhi including Ghosh, who virtually brought out a statement defending the CPI-M, has said in the past that “in the absence of intervention by the state machinery and civil society organisation and unwillingness by the opposition for a political dialogue, is it surprising that the displaced CPI-M sympathisers made their own moves to return to their homes.”
So, does it mean that what happened in Nandigram should be supported?
To which Ghosh said, “At least 300 people were evicted from their homes in January this year. No state administration has been allowed to enter Nandigram. It was a situation that was completely untenable. No law and order machinery could enter Nandigram in the last nine months. Children could not go to school. This kind of a set up cannot solve a problem.”
The CPM has been critised for recapturing Nandigram, but BUPC’s blockade of Nandigram has also not found many takers.
Reacting to Ghosh’s allegations Mamata said, “That is wrong. This allegation is the face-saving formula of the CPM party. There was no blockade in Nandigram. Pulse polio was 100 per cent in the area. The region has been normal all this while. But why did the sate government withdraw the seven police camps on October 27 before the second massacre. The government should have known that Nandigram is a fragile region.”
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This is land capturing and stone age kind of group attack. Looks like there are enough people who support Maoist
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