By IANS,
Kolkata : Seeking to shake off charges of obstructing industry in West Bengal in the wake of the Nano’s exit, Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee Monday said her party was supportive of the JSW Bengal Steel project in Salboni as the promoters had bought land directly from the farmers.
“The government should ponder over why we agitated against the Tata Motors project in Singur. The government and the Tatas had joined hands to forcibly take multi-crop land from the peasants. So, we protested. The Jindals of the JSW group did not do it. Therefore we are supporting the project,” Banerjee said at a rally here organised in protest against the attack on Trinamool leaders and activists Sunday at Singur by activists of the save Nano Committee.
Going hammer and tongs against the Tatas for striking a “clandestine deal” with the state’s ruling Left front, Banerjee said “They (Tata Motors) fled the state so that their treaty with the state government did not come out into the open. Now, if we ask for details of the accord, they will turn it down on the ground that the Singur project itself has been scrapped.”
Banerjee said her party had never asked Tata Motors to stop work on the mother plant. “We only said that the ancillary units should be relocated and 400 acres returned to the farmers from whom the land was taken against their will.”
Tata Motors on Oct 3 announced that it was pulling out of the Singur project following a sustained campaign launched by the Trinamool Congress led farmers for over two years.
Nano has now found a new home at Sanand in Gujarat.
Nearly a month after the Tatas withdrew, Singur was on the boil Sunday with activists of Trinamool and Save Nano Committee engaging in a pitched battle that left several injured.
Police said the trouble began after Save Nano Committee members blockaded the Durgapur Expressway leading up to the factory and damaged the cars of Trinamool leaders including leader of the opposition Partha Chattopadhyay who were on way to a rally to be addressed by Banerjee.
The Committee members earlier declared they would not allow Banerjee to enter Singur as she had “caused irrepairable harm” by forcing Tata Motors to leave the rural belt.