Fresh violence in Nandigram area Saturday killed two people and shook West Bengal politically with Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee resigning as MP and state minister Kshiti Goswami offering to quit.
As critics blasted the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) of unleashing terrible violence on their opponents in troubled Nandigram, the ruling Left Front got a severe jolt when Goswami of the Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP) publicly came out against the 'expedition of killing and plunder'.
Mamata Banerjee turned the heat on the communists by resigning from parliament by faxing her resignation letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee.
Challenging the official claim of two killed and several injured, she alleged that about 200 people had been killed in a violence spree blamed on CPI-M activists determined to cleanse Nandigram of Trinamool-backed activists opposed to takeover of farmland for industry. The Indian central government is planning to send a large number of reserved police to Nandigram.
