Trinamool calls for Bengal shutdown

Trinamool Congress' decision to "paralyse" normal life for 12 hours from 6:00 am on Wednesday stood as renewed violence in Nandigram has not stopped and also because all democratic means of protest have been "exhausted", Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee said on Tuesday.

"There was one more death in Nandigram on Tuesday while limitless atrocities by CPI(M) cadres are continuing," Banerjee told a press conference at the party office.

"All democratic avenues have been closed for us. We cannot come out with guns. We have only called for democratic means of protest on Wednesday," she said.

"We know that bandhs inconvenience people. But we have no choice," she said.

Stating that she too was for a political solution in Nandigram, she added that Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee was claiming she was shying away from it.

"The chief minister is trying to confuse the people to discredit us. If I was not eager for a political solution then how was it that I held talks with veteran Left Front leaders like Jyoti Basu and Ashok Ghosh on Nandigram?"

"Are they not political persons? Why is there now talk of a political process when the perpetrators of the March 14 genocide in Nandigram are yet to be punished," she said.