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Monday, Mar 19, 2007
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Removing Buddhadeb ruled out

Special Correspondent

West Bengal Chief Minister calls on Governor, discusses Nandigram

Kolkata: The question of removing Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee from the post of West Bengal Chief Minister in view of the developments at Nandigram does not arise, general secretary of the Communist Party of India [Marxist], Prakash Karat, said here on Sunday.

"The people of West Bengal have elected the Left Front; he [Mr. Bhattacharjee] is the Chief Minister of the Left Front Government and will remain so," he said.

Mr. Bhattacharjee called on Governor Gopalkrishna Gandhi and they were understood to have discussed the situation arising from the turn of events at Nandigram where violence claimed 14 lives on March 14.

On that day, Mr. Gandhi, in a statement, had said: "... ..I leave it to the conscience of officials responsible to atone for the event in the manner they deem fit. But I also expect the Government to do what it thinks is necessary to mitigate the effects of this bitter March 14, and to do it visibly and fast."

Mr. Karat met senior CPI (M) leaders, including veteran Marxist leader Jyoti Basu, during the day and discussed the political developments following the disturbances at Nandigram.

"I met all the [party's State] leaders. I am collecting all the reports and will first have to go and report to the Polit Bureau", Mr. Karat said.

"There was also a discussion [on the issues] at yesterday's [Saturday's] Left Front meeting and we believe that all the [outstanding] problems will be resolved," he added.

The situation at Nandigram, where a team of officials of the Central Bureau of Investigation are inquiring into the recent violence there, remained tense during the day.

Ten persons, arrested by the CBI on Saturday in the course of their investigations, were produced before the Contai court and remanded to four-day police custody.

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