Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee Monday spoke with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who is presently in Moscow, and invited him along with Congress President Sonia Gandhi to visit the violence-torn Nandigram in West Bengal.
"I called the prime minister in Moscow. I also spoke to the Prime Minister's Office in Delhi and the Union home secretary on Monday," she said. "I have got a message that an National Democratic Alliance team is visiting Nandigram on Tuesday. The prime minister and Sonia Gandhi should also visit the village to meet the hapless people there after its recapture by the Communist Party of India-Marxist," Banerjee told reporters.
She said that she was knocking on all doors for restoration of peace in the village. "The prime minister and Sonia should go and see for themselves that the people of Nandigram are crying even though the CPI-M is removing all evidence of their atrocities there," Banerjee, who has been staying in Tamluk after entering on a motorcycle on Sunday because of CPI-M blockades, said. "Why is the Centre depending on the criminal chief minister?" she asked, adding "they may have political compulsion as they are taking CPI-M's support to run the UPA government, but the Centre also has the compulsion to protect the people and the Constitution".
Dismissing the CPI-M's claim that Nandigram was free from terror, she sought to know why the media was not being allowed in the area since November 1. "Let them (government) allow the media. I will not go," she said.
Banerjee said she would participate in the rally called by intellectuals on November 14 in Kolkata in protest against 'state-sponsored violence' in Nandigram and appealed to all people to join it.
