Kolkata, Oct 20 (Ajit Weekly News) Singur, the erstwhile site for Tata Motor’s small car project Nano in West Bengal’s Hooghly district is in the news again after Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee claimed that not she but the CPI-M was responsible for chasing out Tatas from the state.
“I just returned the land that they forcefully acquired for the project,” the chief minister said on Wednesday.
While all the principal opposition parties have launched a scathing attack against the chief minister’s comments and describing her statement as blatantly untrue, Ajit Weekly News tries to look back on the entire Tata Motor- Singur episode that started soon after the seventh Left Front government in West Bengal came to power with a massive majority with Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee as the chief minister in 2006.
On May 18, 2006, Tata Group chairman Ratan Tata accompanied by Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and the-then state commerce minister, Nirupam Sen announced Tata Motor’s small car project at Singur after the details on this count was finalised at a meeting between Ratan Tata and Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee six days before the date of announcement.
Thereafter, the process of land procurement of 1,000 acres required for the process started and between May 27 and July 4 of 2006, three all- party meetings were convened by the Hooghly district administration on this count, all of which were boycotted by Trinamool Congress.
On November 30, 2006, the West Bengal Assembly witnessed a major ruckus after Mamata Banerjee was stopped by the police administration from going to Singur. After being obstructed, she reached the Assembly. The Assembly property was ransacked by the then Trinamool Congress legislators, many of whom are currently ministers in the present cabinet.
From December 3, 2006, Mamata Banerjee, as the then opposition leader started a fast-unto- death agitation against the land acquisition for the Singur project at Kolkata’s heart of Esplanade. Current Indian Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and former Indian Prime minister Vishwanath Pratap Singh were among the prominent national leaders who met her there during her 25-day fasting agitation and expressed solidarity. Meanwhile, there were frequent strikes, road blockades throughout the state during that period against the land acquisition.
Meanwhile, the construction work for the factory and the agitation continued. Two letters from Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee to Mamata Banerjee on August 18 and August 25 of 2008 inviting her for discussions were rejected by her. Finally, on August 24, 2008, Mamata Banerjee started staging protest demonstrations at Durgapur Express Highway adjacent to the Nano site at Singur demanding the return of 400 acres of 1,000 acres of land acquired for the project.
On September 5 and September 6 of 2008, there were two consecutive bipartite meetings at the Governor House in Kolkata between the state government and Trinamool Congress representatives which was mediated by the then Governor, Gopal Krishna Gandhi.
On September 7, 2008, Gopal Krishan Gandhi mediated a very important meeting on this count which was attended by Mamata Banerjee, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and the the state commerce & industries minister Nirupam Sen. However, Mamata Banerjee in the meeting was adamant on her demand for the return of 400 acres of land and refused to accept the state government’s logic that while the main factory will be on 600 acres the remaining 400 acres will be earmarked for ancillary industries. A similar meeting followed on September 12, 2008, but without any results.
Finally, on an afternoon of October 3, 2008, which was just two days before the Durga Puja festival that year, Ratan Tata in a hurriedly called press conference at the lobby of Tata Group- owned Prime Hotel in Kolkata, announced his decision to pull out of Singur, solely holding the agitation by Trinamool Congress led by Mamata Banerjee responsible.
“I think some time back I mentioned that if somebody puts a gun to my head, you will pull the trigger or you take the gun away because I will not move my head. I think Ms Banerjee has pulled the trigger,” were his parting words. Gujarat’s Sanand became the new destination for the Nano factory.
–Ajit Weekly News
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News Credits – I A N S
