Mamata rules out talks with Buddhadeb

KOLKATA: Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee on Sunday ruled out the possibility of holding any talks with West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacherjee over the Singur issue.
    
"We will not negotiate with the chief minister who was responsible for the killing of farmers at Nandigram," Banerjee told    

"I readily accepted an invitation from former chief minister Jyoti Basu for discussing issues out of my respect to him as a politician. He had also the wisdom to understand the essence of the problem and had agreed with me that the land of the unwilling farmers for the Tata Motor's project should be returned," she said.
   
"It is now clear that the CPI(M)'s top leaders are not prepared to listen to the views of Basu. Since they are not respecting a leader of his stature, how can we expect that views of the Opposition on Singur and Nandigram issues would be respected by the government?" she asked.
    
CPI (M)-led ruling Left Front committee at its meeting on Saturday had decided that the Opposition would have to talk to the government on the Singur issue as the Front had nothing to do with the administrative decision of the state government.