The meeting assumes significance as it would be held in the backdrop of the collapsed all-party meeting on May 24 from which the TC chief had walked out.
KOLKATA: In an attempt to end the standoff over West Bengal government's move to acquire farmland in Nandigram for industries, CPI-M patriarch Jyoti Basu invited Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee to a meeting on Monday evening.
''Jyoti Basu rang me up and invited me to his Salt Lake residence for a discussion. He is an aged person. He has invited me and so I am going to meet him,'' Banerjee said.
The meeting assumes significance as it would be held in the backdrop of the collapsed all-party meeting on Nandigram on May 24 from which the TC chief had walked out following sharp differences with West Bengal's CPI (M) over her insistence that the March 14 police firing there was a 'genocide'.
Senior CPI leader and Water Investigation minister Nandagopal Bhattacharya said Basu had taken a personal initiative and expressed the hope that it would help find a solution to the Nandigram issue.
''Nothing can be better than this,'' he said.
Welcoming the move, RSP leader and PWD minister Kshiti Goswami said Basu was a leader of high stature and ''we hope for a positive outcome.''
He said even if the TC supremo had walked out of the all-party meeting on the issue of 'genocide' at Nandigram, Monday's meeting was expected to bring about lasting peace at Nandigram.
Veteran Forward Bloc leader Ashok Ghosh, who had earlier taken the initiative to convene the all-party meeting and succeeded in bringing Mamata Banerjee to the negotiation table, expressed happiness over Basu's initiative.
He said all the Left and opposition parties would look forward to a positive outcome of the meeting.
Asked whether he had any talks with Basu in this regard, Ghosh said, ''I requested Left Front chairman Biman Bose a few days ago to take the entire responsibility of a future peace meeting. We all have to welcome Jyoti Basu's initiative and worked for creating a congenial atmosphere for return of peace at troubled Nandigram.
''I strongly believe that today's discussion will help restore peace all over West Bengal. The poor farmers of Nandigram and Khejuri will be able to work during sowing season during ensuing monsoon.''
Congress leader Subrata Mukherjee, however, said though it was a good development, it was in fact a 'game of diplomacy' between CPI (M) and TC and there was no guarantee of any positive outcome and this would not help the farmers of Nandigram.
A meeting of the state's ruling Left Front on June 2 had decided that the initiative for holding peace meeting would henceforth be pursued by major partner, CPI(M), alone.
This has relegated to the background Ashok Ghosh who had played peace broker in the run-up to the May 24 all-party meeting.
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