By IANS,
Singur (West Bengal) : Threatening to renew the agitation against the Tata Motors factory here, Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee Saturday asked the West Bengal government to return the land taken for the project from “unwilling” farmers.
“We will renew our agitation in Singur from Aug 20. The government must give back the land it has acquired from the farmers, who were unwilling to part with it,” she said at a meeting here.
Banerjee led a march from Ghasherchor to Joymollah in Singur in Hooghly district, 40 km from Kolkata, raising slogans against the state’s Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M)-led Left Front (LF) government’s industrialisation policy.
“During the recent panchayat elections, the people here voted against the forcible eviction of people from their land in the name of setting up industries. The CPI-M must accept the people’s verdict,” she said.
“If the government does not heed our warning, people from all over the state will join the agitation here,” she thundered.
The Trinamool-led Singur Krishi Jami Raksha Committee (Save Singur Farm Land Committee) has spearheaded the agitation on the land issue, which has cost the CPI-M dear in the recent local body polls.
The Trinamool bagged 15 out 16 gram panchayats in Singur, besides winning a majority of panchayat samiti and zilla parishad seats in the three-tier rural body polls held last month.
Tata Motors’ small car Nano is scheduled to roll out from the Singur plant later this year.