West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee today described gherao as illegal and immoral and said he was opposed to bandhs in a sharp deviation from his party line.
“Gherao is completely illegal and immoral - it will not be allowed in this state. It is our contribution to the English language”, he said at a meeting organised by Assocham.
“I am against bandhs, but unfortunately I belong to a political party which calls bandhs. Then I have to keep quiet but from now on I will not keep quiet”, he added.
Last week, CPI(M) leader Sitaram Yechury and some state leaders had said in Kolkata that they supported bandhs, the last of which was enforced on August 20 by the Left trade union CITU.
He also announced at the meeting that the government would not return any land to farmers who had not accepted compensation after losing their land to the Rs 1 lakh Tata Motors car plant in Singur despite Trinamool Congress leader sitting in dharna on front of the project site demanding return of land.
This marked a position that was expected to lead to escalation of disturbances on the Singur land issue, with Banerjee promising to extend her protests to other parts of the state.