CPM leader Subhas Chakraborty (circled, left) and Mamata Banerjee (circled, right) at the all-party meeting at Mahajati Sadan on Thursday. To Mamata’s right is Forward Bloc leader Ashok Ghosh. Picture by Amit Datta

Calcutta, May 24: Genocide on her lips, Mamata Banerjee burst out but not before spending 1 hour and 51 minutes in a rainbow row of leaders rarely seen on the Bengal political horizon.

Neither Mamata nor the CPM sees it as the end of the road after the Trinamul Congress leader walked out of today’s all-party meeting convened to bring the homeless back to Nandigram.

The regulation rhetoric and accusations — largely centred on whether the deaths in the police firing should be dubbed “genocide” or not — notwithstanding, both sides were willing to join the next round of talks.

Neither had really expected the first round of talks to yield results on the ground. The leaders — Mamata, CPM’s Shyamal Chakraborty and Forward Bloc’s Ashok Ghosh —played down the initial failure, hoping to do better next time.

Mamata during the meeting and after the walkout. Pictures by Amit Datta

Going back from Mahajati Sadan to her Kalighat residence, Mamata said: “I have no problems attending a thousand meetings if they are convened by Ashok Ghosh, the RSP or the CPI. But the meeting must have a concrete agenda. We want peace in Nandigram but cannot stay in a meeting where CPM leaders justify the March 14 police firing and subsequent genocide.”

Mamata made the political point she wanted to make: she had attended a meeting called with a humanitarian objective while the CPM top brass stayed away.

This is the first time Mamata is attending any meeting with CPM leaders, though she took care not to sign the attendance register. On earlier occasions, she had sent other leaders to all-party meetings, either at political or administrative levels.

This time, Mamata attended the meeting with the sole intention of raising the Nandigram issue, demanding that the March 14 police firing in which 14 people died be described as “genocide’’.

Failing to extract the semantic surrender from the Left following vehement protests from the CPM representatives who included Subhas Chakraborty, she left the venue at 4.56 pm. She had stepped into the hall at 3.05 pm.

“Declaration of the Nandigram incident as genocide, punishment for the culprits involved, resumption of CBI inquiry, fixing responsibility on CID officials who failed to file chargesheets against the 10 arrested from Janani brick-kiln are my demands,’’ she said.

Later, fresh demands were laid down for any future meeting. It should have transparency; the meeting cannot be held if people at Nandigram spend each day at gun point; the Opposition should not be ridiculed; and the government should genuinely want to restore peace.

Today’s meeting started with convener Ghosh focusing on the need for a pro-people industrialisation drive. Mamata and the Congress’s Somen Mitra intervened and said the meeting should start with a reference to the March 14 police firing.

CPI minister Nandagopal Bhattacharyya read out a draft which the allies said was prepared as the “meeting ground’’ between the CPM and Mamata.

It said: “This meeting expresses grave concern over the situation in Nandigram and adjoining areas. This meeting also condemns the police firing and demands punishment to the culprits. It also demands compensation for the victims and asks the government to repair houses damaged during violence. The meeting demands an immediate end to the violence.”

Front sources said Bhattacharyya added another line to the draft to accommodate the CPM’s stand that “all sides will have to take the initiative to ensure punishment of those involved in the violence in Nandigram and its adjoining areas’’.