Calcutta, Feb. 23: Except in Nandigram — where the SEZ projects are on hold anyway because of a central policy rethink — the industrialisation process and land acquisition will continue, chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee iterated today.

The CPM will simultaneously continue its campaign to convince farmers of the need for industry, the party’s state secretariat decided at its weekly meeting.

The party appears to have adopted a go-slow strategy on SEZs and the land ceiling bill while backing the government on projects such as the Tata Motors one in Singur and the steel plants — proposed by the Jindal Group and Balaji Steel — at West Midnapore’s Salboni and Raghunathpur in Purulia.

There was some confusion over the party ploy after veteran leader Jyoti Basu said after the meeting that the government’s moves would be “postponed for three months” pending the party’s public awareness campaign. “There was some misunderstanding among people regarding industrialisation, which would not have happened if we had launched the campaign first,” he said when asked if the CPM allies’ opposition to the land reforms bill, which proposed to relax the rural land ceiling, would hinder the pace of industrialisation.

Reacting to Basu’s remarks, the chief minister said at Writers’ Buildings that work on industrial projects would continue. “I don’t know what Jyotibabu has said. We are going ahead with land acquisition except in Nandigram. The work on the Jindal project is also on.”

The party later clarified Basu’s comment and said he did not mean that the industrialisation drive would be postponed. What he referred to was the party’s three-month campaign and the “postponement” referred to the proposed projects in Nandigram and the SEZs, a CPM leader said.

CPM state secretary and front chairman Biman Bose, too, said the party has taken no decision to postpone industrialisation. “But we are not going overboard about it,” he said.