Left parties split over Tata’s Singur plant

KOLKATA; Left Front partners in West Bengal have failed to come to an agreement on Tata Motors’ proposed small car venture in Singur. This, despite chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee’s recent affirmation that the state government was determined to hand over 997 acres at Singur to the Tatas by December 31.

The CPI has urged state commerce and industry minister Nirupam Sen to come clean on the agreement between the state government and Tata Motors to remove confusion among Left Front constituents.

CPI state secretary and national council member of the party, Manju Kumar Majumder said on Tuesday: “Any hide and seek by our government over the Tata Motors project may send wrong signals to the people of our state and the industry minister should tell us about the agreement.”

Mr Majumder added: “We’ve come to know that the industry minister had described the agreement as a trade secret and refused to make it public. As a partner of the state government, we remain in the dark on its contents.”

Elaborating, he said: “We are demanding an exclusive meeting of the Left Front to discuss the issue. We want the industry minister (Nirupam Sen) to brief us,” the CPI leader said.

He felt the government needed to be transparent in it’s move to industrialise West Bengal and let the people know the conditions the Tatas have placed before the government in setting up their small car unit.

“All we know is that the state government is not selling the land to the Tatas, but offering it on lease,” Mr Majumder said.

Interestingly, the state industry minister who is now in Japan had turned down Congress’ demand that a white paper on the Singur land acquisition issue be published by the government.