That the protest was running out of steam was evident when Mamata Banerjee announced she would prefer staying back in Kolkata.
Protest march turns out to be a flop show, fencing is complete
KOLKATA: The political heat and dust over Singur is showing signs of dissipation.
While the West Bengal government has completed the fencing of the land acquired for the Tata Motors’ small car project, Mamata Banerjee, who had raised the banner of revolt by announcing a protest march to Singur, opted to stay in Kolkata instead and continue her fast and Medha Patkar, on the other hand, shifting her sights to Nandigram where a chemical hub is coming up.
That the protest against Tata Motors project was running out of steam became evident from Wednesday night, when Mamata announced she would prefer staying back in Kolkata rather than take part in the Singur march. The march turned out to be a flop show with the protestors showing no zeal to break police barricades and courting arrest instead.
Nearly 2,500 protestors were taken into custody by a strong police force, who stopped the agitators at Dirghangi Crossing, well outside Singur. Hyped as ratcheting up opposition to the Tata project, the protest was led by
Trinamul MLAs, Sougata Roy and Shobhondeb Chattopadhyay. Some tension was palpable on Thursday morning again, when Naxalite activists started arriving at a local club ground at Baidyabati near Singur to join the TMC leaders. In addition, there were cautionary advise from intelligence department that elements from the Naxalite organisations might provoke police to open fire.
Anticipating major trouble, around 3,000 officers and jawans of the state police, rapid action force and special combat force cordoned off Singur blocking all its entry points. The SP of Hooghly, Supratim Sarkar and the DIG NR Babu, along with other senior officials were seen personally monitoring the arrangements.
The agitators started marching towards Singur from Baidyabati at around 1 p.m but were stopped by the security personnel. To the surprise of the police personnel, there was no attempt to break the barricades. Instead the leaders only gave lectures and requested the police to announce the arrest of the agitators. Nearly 2,500 were arrested but released as soon as the administration realised that protestors’ zeal had fizzled out.
In Kolkata, Mamata announced that her fasting would continue. Clarifying the reasons behind the Thursday’s flop-show, she said, “The police did not allow our supporters even to reach the meeting point at Baidyabati.”
A senior state government official said that with the fencing work of the acquired land being complete, the Tata Motors’ officials are expected to arrive at Singur any day now. However, the state government has decided to keep their arrival date a secret for security reasons. Patkar on her part had gone to Nandigram to create awareness against the procurement of land for the proposed chemical hub there.
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