Mamata scales back demand, hints at stir again

SINGUR: Scaling back the demand that the ancillary units of the Tata Motors' Nano project at Singur be shifted across the highway to the opposite side of the site, Trinamool Congress said on Tuesday that these can be built on 100 acres and the main plant on 600 acres even as it hinted that its agitation is yet to be over.
 
Addresssing a rally here, party chief Mamata Banerjee said "I don't want the Tatas to pull out of Singur, but I am not bothered either. However, the main plant can be set up on 600 acres and the ancillary on 100 acres."
 
She demanded that the 'gentleman's agreement' on Singur reached between the West Bengal government and her party at Raj Bhavan chaired by West Bengal Governor Gopalkrishna Gandhi should be honoured.
 
Her party, she said, was waiting for Gandhi's return from Delhi on September 19.
 
"We will speak to the governor on September 19 and then decide our future course of action, which may be resumption of our movement.
 
"The government should not forget that we did not withdraw our dharna, but only suspended it," she said.
 
With the state government having announced a fresh rehabilitation package for landlosers at Singur, Banerjee, however, said she would not budge from her demand that 300 acres of land from within the main plant area and 100 acres from outside be immediately returned to farmers whose land was 'forcibly acquired'.
 
"If the government can't act, it should quit. Either you solve the problem, or leave," Banerjee thundered.

Banerjee said "If the government has the will, it can solve the Singur issue within a minute."
 
She claimed the rehabilitation package announced by the government that was advertised in newspapers as "a unilateral" decision and her party or the governor were not consulted.
 
"We are throwing the rehabilitation package of the government in the dustbin.
 
"This is the first time in 30 years that in the presence of the governor, the government and the opposition entered into an agreement and we responded by joining the discussion."
 
The rally was organised to counter the Monday's gathering by the Left Front in support of the Tata Motors project.
 
Apart from senior Trinamool leaders, senior Congress leader and state INTUC chief Subrata Mukherjee and Progressive Indira Congress leader Somen Mitra shared the platform with Banerjee and members of her party-led 'Krishi-Jami-Jiban Jibika Raksha Committee' (Land Protection Forum).
    
The rally was held at the spot where the Trinamool Congress had held its indefinite dharna from August 24 before suspending it on September 7 after the Raj Bhavan talks between Banerjee and Buddhadeb.
    
The Durgapur Highway, which runs beside the Tata Motors project site was chock-a-block with buses and other vehicles in which droves of rallyists arrived, disrupting traffic.
    
In a bid to prove that dissenting farmers in Singur had not deserted her, Banerjee presented three of landlosers on the dais.
    
On Monday, at the Left Front's rally, a woman landloser had gone to the stage to announce that she was willing to accept the fresh compensation package announced by the state government.
    
"Next time I will ask 100 landlosers to be present when I hold a rally here," the Trinamool chief declared.
    
There are 2,251 unwilling farmers who have not taken the compensation cheques from the state government.
   
There was tension on Monday night when the police objected to Trinamool Congress's plan to hold its rally on the Durgapur Expressway.
    
Senior Trinamool Congress leader Partha Chatterjee had shot off a letter to the Home Secretary A M Chakraborty urging him to restrain the police.
    
IGP (Law and Order) Raj Kanojia said permission was not granted for holding a rally beside the Durgapur Expressway.
   
The Hooghly district administration had assured assistance to the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) in keeping the Durgapur Expressway, free from obstruction during the rally.