Buddha postpones SEZ land acquisition

West Bengal Chief Minister says Nandigram agitation has been handled badly, report Aloke Banerjee and Romita Datta.

West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee said on Tuesday the Nandigram agitation had been handled badly. "It happened because of our mistake. We must talk to every villager and in every panchayat. The map (of the proposed SEZ) will not be finalised before we get the opinion of the villagers. Of course, I will also go there," said the chief minister.

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Bhattacharjee said acquisition would be kept in abeyance till normalcy and peace returned in Nandigram. He admitted that a notice issued by the Haldia Development Authority (HDA) identifying the mouzas to be acquired had angered the people of Nandigram. "It was a big blunder and the principal cause of the mayhem that followed," he said, adding that he had asked the district magistrate to scrap the notification.

On Monday, CPI(M) state secretary Biman Bose had said the HDA had issued no such notification.

Tuesday indeed turned out to be the day of enlightenment for the CPI(M) and the state government. Hours after the chief minister admitted the mistakes of his administration, Bose tendered an unconditional apology to Medha Patkar after she threatened to file a defamation case against him.

Bose had alleged on Monday, that the blueprint of the militant resistance struggle in Nandigram had been hatched inside a four-storeyed house in Sonachura and even Patkar attended one such meeting.

E-mail Aloke Banerjee: alokebanerjee@hindustantimes.com and Romita Datta: datta-romita@yahoo.com