By IANS,
Kolkata : For Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee, riding the little Nano is a big ‘No-No’, as it is made with the “blood of people”.
Participating in a phone-in programme on a Bengali news channel, Banerjee was categorical that she will never travel in the small car from the Tata Motors stable.
“Which car I ride is my fundamental right. But I will not ride the car which has been manufactured with the blood of people,” Banerjee said in reply to a query.
“I think the entire show of the Nano launch is a mere election propaganda. They have sent only three cars to Kolkata. The Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) cadres are driving them. Now people will book the cars by paying Rs.3,000. Then there will be a lottery, and nobody will get the cars. And then these so called Nano cars will vanish,” she added.
Asked whether she will allow Tata Motors to return to Singur if her party came to power in the state, Banerjee said: “I will first go through the contract they have signed with the West Bengal government and then decide.”
Nano was scheduled to roll out from Singur, 40 km from here in Hooghly district. But from May 2006, when the state government announced the Tata Nano project, Singur turned into a battleground for about two and a half years.
The Trinamool Congress led a sustained campaign against land acquisition in Singur, forcing Tata Motors to scrap its plans to bring out the peoples’ car, priced at Rs.100,000, from the West Bengal facility. Tata Motors shifted to Sanand in Gujarat.
Banerjee also ridiculed Tata Motors’ claim of pricing the car at Rs.100,000. “I found today that people have to buy the base model in Kolkata for Rs.154,000. Doesn’t this amount to cheating the people?” she asked during the programme on Star Ananda.
She said her party will take a decision on whether to join the central government after the Lok Sabha elections. “We will hold wide ranging discussions in our party, as also with our sympathisers on this,” she said.
“And rather than me, there are others in the party who can be made ministers,” said Banerjee, whose party has tied up with the Congress for the Lok Sabha polls.
She criticised Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate Varun Gandhi for his alleged hate speeches, saying he needed to rectify his ways to stay put in politics. “Whatever he has said is not proper. It’s wrong to hurt people’s religious sentiments.”
At the same time, she felt, it would be wrong if the authorities are vindictive towards the young Lok Sabha aspirant.