Veteran Forward Bloc leader Ashok Ghosh on Sunday said it was Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee who gave the order for police firing in Nandigram on March 14.

“At the Left Front meeting held after the firing we asked who was responsible for giving the order for police firing. There was silence for some time and then the CM got up and said it was he who gave the order and his party had nothing to do with it,” Ghosh said during a rally in Nandigram on Sunday. The Chief Minister is expected to address a rally here on December 26.

Ghosh also did not mince words while criticising the CPI(M). “There is more discord than consensus,” he said. The Forward Bloc veteran leader reiterated that his party would go it alone in the forthcoming Panchayat elections. “It is true that we do not have the strength to contest in all the constituencies. But we will definitely contest in those seats where we have a support base. We do not have to consult anybody on this,” he said.

Ghosh also lambasted the CPI(M) for taking decisions unilaterally without consulting its other Left Front partners.

Criticising the state Government’s industrilialisation policy, he said: “They want to industrialise the state by hanging on the coat tails of Tatas and Salim.”

Later, Agricultural Marketing Board chairman Naren Chatterjee accused the CPI(M) of dancing to the tunes of capitalists and pursuing a politics of violence. Taking a dig at the CPI(M), Chatterjee said, “They can organise larger rallies and command a huge gathering, but no Chief Minister can bring back the lives lost in Nandigram. The red flag was never meant for the appeasement of the capitalists. We have the Congress, BJP and the Trinamool Congress to do that.”