M A I N   N E W S

NDA team to visit W. Bengal
Trinamool Cong MPs meet Advani
Tribune News Service

NEW DELHI, Aug 10 — A delegation of MPs of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) will visit West Bengal this week to study the law and order situation in the state.

Announcing the visit, the BJP spokesman, Mr M. Venkaiah Naidu said a meeting of the NDA partners along with the NDA convener, Mr George Fernandes, yesterday discussed the latest attack on the convoy of the Minister of State for External Affairs, Mr Ajit Panja at Midnapore where he had gone to attend a rally convened by the Trinamool Congress.

Referring to clashes between the BJP and the Trinamool Congress workers and the CPM party activists resulting in killings, Mr Naidu said the NDA meeting decided to send a delegation of MPs to the state to study the situation and get firsthand information about the ground reality.

Accusing the CPM of ‘‘terrorising and killing’’ its political opponents in West Bengal, the BJP spokesman said the (CPM) was doing it as it was getting politically isolated in the state.

Being the first Dalit leader of the party to become the BJP president in the party’s 20-year history, Mr Laxman would try to expand the party’s base both socially as well as geographically.

Earlier, in an apparent move to put pressure on the Vajpayee Government to impose President’s rule in West Bengal, Trinamool Congress MPs, along with major NDA allies, today asked the Centre to seek the Governor’s report on the law and order situation in the state.

The memorandum was handed over to Mr Advani during a 30-minute meeting, Home Ministry sources said.

They accused the ruling CPM of indulging in a “systematic anti-Trinamool Congress police-backed” campaign of violence in Birbhum, Garbeta, Keshpur, Chandrakona, Khejuri and Bhajachauli districts.

The memorandum also drew the government’s attention to the fact that some 220 Trinamool Congress workers and supporters were killed in different parts of West Bengal, allegedly by CPM activists, since the formation of the party on January 1, 1998.