Kolkata, July 16 (IANS) The West Bengal assembly Thursday plunged into bedlam amid walkouts by opposition Congress and Trinamool Congress members as Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee admitted that the police had failed to anticipate the situation that led to an attack on eight legislators a day earlier in Burdwan district.
Making an impromptu statement in the house after Leader of Opposition Partha Chattopadhyay and Congress legislature party leader Manas Bhuniya raised the issue, Bhattacharjee condemned the violence in Mongolkote in Burdwan but denied Bhuniya’s charge that Industries Minister Nirupam Sen had hatched the conspiracy.

“This allegation is unfortunate and incorrect. The administration and our party (Communist Party of India-Marxist) are also not involved,” the chief minister said amid protests from the opposition lawmakers, who also went close to the speaker’s podium and shouted slogans.

Bhattacharjee also said he could sense that the state was moving towards a very bad situation and such anarchic incidents should stop.

“I condemn the physical and mental torture on the Congress MLAs,” he said.

He said police had failed to fathom the developing situation and “it is their failure”.

Bhattacharjee said the government would review the circumstances leading to the situation where 24 people including four policemen sustained injuries.

However, the chief minister said parallels could not be drawn with the violence in Lalgarh, North Bengal hills, Khejuri and Nandigram.

He said the government was prepared to talk with the opposition to prevent recurrence of such events and invited the Congress for a dialogue. Not satisfied with the chief minister’s statement, slogan-shouting Trinamool members walked out of the house and boycotted the day’s remaining proceedings.

Partha Chattopadhyay said despite being asked to specify how many times Trinamool Congress supreme Mamata Banerjee has been obstructed in recent years, the chief minister made no reference to it.

Chattopadhyay alleged that the chief minister also sought to portray the Mongolkote incident in isolation, without linking it to violence by the CPI-M cadres in areas like Keshpur, Nandigram and Garbeta. He said that Bhattacharjee did not have any moral right to continue in office, adding that the centre should intervene to provide security to the people and restore democratic order.

He also demanded the immediate suspension of the district police superintendent and the district magistrate.

Chattopadhyay said the Trinamool and the Congress would jointly approach the centre seeking its intervention in the state. “The state is playing an inhuman role. Congress and the Trinamool will jointly demand central intervention. If a joint operation of central and state forces can be conducted in Lalgarh, then why can’t similar exercises be held elsewhere in the state to seize arms illegally stockpiled by the CPI-M?” he asked.

The Congress MLAs will meet Governor Gopal Krishna Gandhi Friday and brief him about the “atrocities committed by the CPI-M hoodlums”, he told reporters.

Speaker H.A. Halim also condemned the attack on the MLAs and said the police had failed to give protection to the people’s representatives.

“The government has failed. Police should neither be inactive nor over-active. They should not be partisan,” he said. Halim said an all-party meeting should be held to formulate a code of conduct to prevent political violence.