All-party meet on Singur fizzles out

KOLKATA: The all-party meeting convened by West Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee over the Singur land acquisition issue, failed to reach a consensus.

On the contrary, the meeting triggered off dis-satisfaction so much that Suci decided to call a bandh on October 9, the day when another bandh has been called by Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee.

Trinamool of course did not attend the meeting. However, its new-found ally Congress, seemed utterly disillusioned by the way the meeting was conducted. The Congress urged the state government to keep on hold the land acquisition process at Singur till a white paper on the issue was prepared, circulated and discussed by all parties. The state government refused to oblige.

As things stand therefore, Singur does seem to be heading towards a face-off although it is still difficult to gauge whether it’s more of a facade or whether things can snowball to the extent that the Tatas are forced to call off their proposed cheap car project at the site. “It was a meeting without any paper. The government did not give us any documents on its future plans about industrialisation in West Bengal,” Manas Bhunia, leader of the Congress Legislative Party (CLP) who attended the meeting on behalf of his party said.

“Neither have we received any paper from the chief minister about how his government has acquired land at Singur, or about how many farmers have lost their land and whether the government will follow the same compensation package that it has drafted for Singur land losers in other cases of land acquisitions also,” Dr Bhunia said.

Suci, another Left party in West Bengal, which has 2 MLAs in the state legislature, also came down heavily on Bhattacharjee government’s move to acquire land at Singur. The party had attended the meeting, but expressed its utter displeasure. All Left Front partners supported the government in its drive to industrialise the state and also promised to continue their support.