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Kolkata, Nov 24 (IANS) With high-voltage West Bengal elections barely a few months away, West Bengal Irrigation and Transport minister Suvendu Adhikari on Tuesday took out a massive rally in East Midnapore's Khejuri under an apolitical banner.
The heavyweight Trinamool Congress leader triggered yet another controversy by not clarifying his political stand. He said: "We have been observing the day in memory of the Khejuri recapturing incident since 2011. We will have to work for the betterment of people. We will have to establish peace, democracy and freedom of speech for the people. I had risked my life to restore normalcy at Khejuri in 2010 when Communist Party of India-backed mercenaries took over control at Khejury at gunpoint. I received the news and chased them away from here."
In 2007, Suvendu had mobilised an anti-land acquisition movement against a proposed chemical hub SEZ by Indonesia-based Salim Group at Nandigram. The protest was organised under the banner of Bhumi Uchhed Pratirodh Committee (BUPC), which saw spiralling protests and bloodshed between disgruntled villagers and CPI-M cadres and the police.
A police firing on protesters led to over a dozen deaths, following which the agitation further intensified prompting the then CPI-M-led Left Front government to step back.
Trinamool Congress leader and the party's Lok Sabha member Sougata Roy, however, said that Suvendu is still with the Trinamool Congress.
"I don't want to talk about anything on the Suvendu Adhikari issue. But still now he is with the Trinamool Congress. At least he has not uttered anything against the party so far," Roy told a press conference here.
The veteran Trinamool MP said that the party also tries to maintain good relation and harmony amongst all its leaders across the state
Meanwhile, talks between the ruling Trinamool Congress and Adhikari, who has been maintaining a distance from the party, remained inconclusive on Monday. Roy, who has been assigned with the job to hold talks with Adhikari, met the minister on Monday evening at a place in north Kolkata. The duo held a nearly two-hour-long discussion. This is the second meeting between the two Trinamool leaders in a week.
--IANS
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