New Delhi: Regretting his controversial remarks in the Nandigram episode that the opposition was paid back in their own coin, West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee today said he should not have said that.

"We paid back in their own coin, I said. But I should not have said this because now I want peace, peace for all, peace for all sections," he told a press conference here, prefacing his remarks with the comment that what he said that day may have been lost in translation.

He was asked whether he regretted the "tit for tat" remarks he made last month in the context of CPI(M) cadre recapturing Nandigram, which had long been a battle ground of the ruling party men against workers of Trinamool Congress, a land protection committee and suspected Maoists. In Bengali, the Chief Minister had said "Bengal has committed a mistake .... It was like tit for tat".

Bhattacharya's remarks then had come under all-round attack and he had justified them the next day saying he was not only Chief Minister but also a CPI(M) worker.

He said the Nandigram episode was an "administrative" failure but felt it would not have any impact on investment in the state. No one can go back on industrialisation because it has captured the minds of young people in Bengal, he said.

Bhattacharjee said he had discussed the situation in Nandigram with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and told him that the situation was gradually normalising.

The evicted people were going back to their homes and a sum of Rs 1 crore from the Chief Minister's relief fund for people whose houses were burnt, he said.

Source : PTI