Nov. 30: The Centre today sought to defuse a storm created by a combined Opposition in Parliament, saying the move to send a team to Bengal was not confrontational.

After the Left dubbed Delhi’s move to assess law and order in Bengal unconstitutional, and received support from other Opposition parties, home minister P. Chidambaram said the plan was to assist the state government and not impose President’s rule.

“I assure you, we are not looking for a confrontation. The central team of officers will assist Bengal officers. There is no need to view the visit of the team through the prism of Article 356 (that allows President’s rule),” he told the Lok Sabha.

Outside Parliament, Chi- dambaram said why Presi- dent’s rule in Bengal was impossible: the UPA did not have the numbers in the Rajya Sabha. Asked about the possibility of invoking Article 356, he said: “How can you say that? There is no majority in the Rajya Sabha.”

In the Lok Sabha, Left MPs led by the CPM’s Basudev Acharya started shouting slogans against the Centre’s move du-ring the morning’s Question Hour, joined by members of the Samajwadi Party (SP) and the ADMK.

When they were allowed to speak at noon, CPI leader Gu-rudas Dasgupta accused the Centre of trying to paralyse the state government and da- red it to impose President’s rule. “If you impose President’s rule, we will face you on the streets. But by sending a team, you are sending a message to bureaucrats not to obey the orders of the council of ministers,” Dasgupta said.

Acharya asked the government to specify the section of the Constitution under which the team was being sent.

“This is being done to just please one member of the UPA, one ally,” Dasgupta said, alluding to Mamata Banerjee.

In Calcutta, the Trinamul Congress leader did sound pleased. “Sending a central team to assess the situation in the state is tantamount to invoking Article 355 to teach the state government to perform its rajdharma,” PTI quoted her as saying. “It means law and order has collapsed and there is a constitutional breakdown.”

However, she insisted on President’s rule for the sake of peace in Bengal.

In the Lok Sabha, leader of the Opposition L.K. Advani urged the Centre to be “very cautious in implementing Article 356”. “Do not take this matter lightly,” the BJP leader said, implicitly backing the Left.

“It’s rare for me to agree with the Marxists,” he admitted.

Trinamul chief whip Sudip Bandopadhyay alleged that CPM “goons” had killed 130 Congress and Trinamul workers since the Lok Sabha polls.

However, when the Left MPs asked Trinamul to pre- sent a list of its workers allegedly killed, it did not.

The Rajya Sabha was adjourned twice in the morning, with Left members supported by those from the SP and the ADMK rushing to the well. “We will not tolerate this,” the CPM’s Sitaram Yechury said.

Here, too, the BJP was with the Left. Arun Jaitley questioned the Centre’s move.

The state government said it did not consider the team’s arrival a reflection of “worsening law and order in Bengal’’.

“There is no state that is trouble-free or has never witnessed clashes. In our state, too, there has been post-poll violence, clashes with communal undertones or confrontations between people over linguistic differences. If the Centre wants to know more in this regard… what’s wrong?” the chief secretary said.