Mamata Banerjee: Will return land to unwilling farmers

Trinamul Congress activists wearing masks of West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee during an election campaign in support of their party candidate in Howrah district of West Bengal. (Photo: PTI)

West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Saturday said that she was committed to returning land from the Tata Motors’ abandoned Nano plant to the unwilling farmers of Singur. It was nearly five years ago that Ms Banerjee had last visited the controversial block in Hooghly district. Singur, alongwith Nandigram, had played a key role in her ascent to power. “If I make a promise I keep it. Our government will return the land. This is our commitment, commitment, commitment and commitment,” she said, while addressing an election rally in Singur on Saturday.

Ms Banerjee went onto narrate how the first thing her government did after coming to power in May 2011 was to pass a bill for the acquisition of the Singur land to pave the way for their return to the farmers. “The land is now in our possession. A case pending in the Supreme Court but it is my firm belief that you will get justice. There is no need to worry,” she said, adding that as long as she was alive, she would now allow any injustice against them.

Ms Banerjee reminded the landlosers that her government had been supplying rice at the subsidised price of Rs 2 per kg to ease the suffering of 3,500 families in Singur. “We have given Singur a college, a kisan bazar, a trauma care centre et al,” she said. Ms Banerjee lashed out against the CPI(M) for trying to mislead the people of Singur. Urging the people to keep faith in her, she asked them to vote for Trinamul Congress to foil the conspiracies of the Opposition.

Ms Banerjee promised that she would come to Singur after winning the election and also after winning the ongoing case in the apex court. In 2006, the Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee government had acquired nearly 1,000 acres for Nano plant. However, a small number of land losers who were unwilling to part with their land refused to accept compensation cheques. Exploiting the farmers’ anger, Ms Banerjee spearheaded a massive anti-land acquisition movement and forced Tata Motors to abandon Nano project in Bengal in 2008 and shift it to Sanand in Gujarat. Mamata government had enacted Singur Land Rehabilitation and Development Act, 2011, that allowed it to reclaim the 400 acres land given to Tata Motors.