Controversial Bangladeshi author Taslima Nasreen was not driven out of West Bengal as published in a section of the press and was free to return when she liked, West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya said in Siliguri on Sunday.

Speaking for the first time after Taslima was sent out of West Bengal under controversial circumstances after large-scale violence rocked central Kolkata last Wednesday, the chief minister said, "The state had never forced her to leave West Bengal."

Addressing an open session of the Darjeeling district conference of the Communist Party of India-Marxist in Siliguri, Bhattacharya said she was free to return to the state whenever she liked and the state government would make "all arrangement".

The state Home Secretary P R Roy had said on Saturday that the writer could come back to the state if she wished and security would not be a problem.

The author was put on a flight to Jaipur by the West Bengal police a day after last Wednesday's violence convulsed the central part of Kolkata let loose by a Muslim fringe organisation demanding cancellation of her visa.