Mamata wants to keep Singur on the boil

KOLKATA: The all-party meeting scheduled on May 24 to restore peace in Nandigram may have a much broader agenda if Trinamool leader Mamata Banerjee has her way. With panchayat elections round the corner, Ms Bannerjee is trying to convince Left Front allies that the meeting should focus on the larger issue of forcible land acquisition for industrial development by the Buddhadeb government. This, she feels, would automatically bring Singur to the fore.

Mamata, it is learnt, made this point during one of her conversations with Forward Bloc chairman Asoke Ghosh. She is understood to have told the veteran leader that the Krishi Jomi Raksha Committee (Save Farmland Committee) agitation over land acquisition in Singur will be completing a year on May 25. The agitation would be futile if ‘Singur’ was not discussed in the all party meeting, she is learnt to be told the Bloc leader.

Mr Ghosh is understood to have assured Mamata that he would discuss the matter with other Front partners and CPM chairman Biman Bose before taking a call. Incidentally, Ms Banerjee reiterated the demand of continuing the agitation in Singur while making a speech in Haldia on Monday. She said, “While Nandigram will be discussed at state level meetings, there’s no reason to keep Singur in the back-burner.”

Singur erupted yet again last Sunday when a mob led by Trinamool and Krishi Jomi Raksha Committee activists clashed with police outside the Tata Motors small car project site.

Keen on not losing the momentum on West Bengal government’s role in acquiring land, leader of the opposition Partha Chatterjee said, Trinamool Congress has been insisting on the fact that most land acquired in Singur was without the consent of landowners.

“The affidavit submitted by the state government to the Calcutta High Court has further proved the point,” claimed the Trinamool leader.