CPM leaders from South 24-Parganas today reminded Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee the impact of the land row on the panchayat polls, two days after he assured the Salim Group of the government's commitment to implement its proposed projects. Bhattacharjee, who is in charge of the district party unit with Benoy Konar, met the leaders at the state party headquarters. State CPM secretary Biman Bose and panchayat minister Surjya Kanta Mishra also attended the meeting, part of the CPM's review of the rural poll setback. According to the participants, neither the chief minister nor Bose mentioned Anthony Salim's visit and the land acquisition plans for his projects in their district. Around 34,000 acres will be required in South and North 24-Parganas and East Midnapore for the Barasat-Raichak expressway, the Raichak-Kukrahati bridge, a knowledge city and industrial estates and townships. An acquisition notice has already been served for a 7km stretch of the expressway in Diamond Harbour. Officials had said after the chief minister's meeting with Salim that the group appreci-ated the need to go slow on acquisition and wait for a consensus with the new Trinamul Congress-led zilla parishads in South 24-Parganas and East Midnapore. Sources said most of the 20 leaders from the district today primarily blamed "fear psychosis' over land acquisition for the rural setback. A section of the leaders led by land minister Abdur Rezzak Mollah is known to be sceptical about the township plans. "This is basically real estate business. We will face further peasant backlash in the Lok Sabha elections if we pursue the same policy,' a leader said. However, some like Jadavpur MP Sujan Chakraborty said the party's failure to counter the Opposition's land campaign, disunity among the Left Front partners and alliance of anti-CPM forces were equally to blame for the poll blow. Diamond Harbour muni-cipality, now in Opposition control, is going to the polls on June 29.