Hailing the bandh as a `spontaneous response of a gagged and tortured people', the Trinamool Congress leader Mamata Banerjee said, ``We appealed to the people for justice and we got their mandate.'' Asked if she expected to convert this `overwhelming response' as votes in the panchayat elections, Banerjee skipped a direct answer. She said, ``By organising a peaceful and successful bandh, we hope to have sent a message home.

If the CPI(M) is wise they should immediately halt violence.'' She said the people's response should teach the CPI(M) to ``reform its ways by reading the writings on the wall''. The Trinamool Congress had emerged as a political force which would fight the CPI(M) and its tyrannical ways politically.She said, ``My party would not press the Centre for imposition of Article 356 in the state for that would be like making a martyr of a dying horse.'' The state BJP said the total bandh showed people's rejection of the LF policies and that they were disgusted and frustrated with the CPI(M).