Buddha takes back 'tit-for-tat' comment

Regretting his controversial remarks in the Nandigram episode that the opposition was paid back in their own coin, West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee on Tuesday said he should not have made those comments.

"'We paid back in their own coin,' I said.  But I should not have said this because now I want peace, peace for all, peace for all sections," he said, prefacing his remarks with the comment that what he said that day may have been lost in translation.

He was asked whether he regretted the 'tit for tat' remarks he made in October in the context of the Communist Party of India-Marxist cadre recapturing Nandigram. The area had long been a battle ground of the ruling party men against workers of Trinamool Congress, a land protection committee and suspected Maoists.

Bhattacharya's remarks then had come under all-round attack and he had justified them the next day saying he was not only chief minister but also a CPI-M worker.

"We have to ensure that Nandigram does not repeat itself. We have learnt lessons from Nandigram that we have to take people into confidence. We have failed in Nandigram. It was an administrative and political failure," he said.

While he agreed that the Nandigram episode was an administrative failure, he said that would not have any impact on investment in the state. "No one can go back on industrialisation because it has captured the minds of young people in Bengal. Nandigram or no Nandigram, the process of industrialisation in West Bengal cannot be stopped. In fact, major foreign companies from Japan, the United States, Singapore and Dubai have sent proposals to invest in the state," he said.

Bhattacharjee said he had discussed the situation in Nandigram with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and told him that the situation was gradually returning to normal.

He said the evicted people were going back to their homes and that a sum of Rs 1 crore from the Chief Minister's Relief Fund would be given to people whose houses were burnt.