Buddha promises car factory at the Nano site, but sans visible movement of clutch or gear.
Draped in red flags of the ruling Left Front, Singur wore an unfamiliar look today, when Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee rose to promise several hundred thousands of people that cars would roll out from the erstwhile Tata-Nano production site. He didn’t say how or by whom.
The Left rally—about five km from the ill-starred Tata Motors’ site—saw a turnout reminiscent of the indefinite sit-in staged by Trinamool Congress leader and now Union railway minister, Mamata Banerjee, just about two years earlier, which ultimately led to pullout of the project.
That was August 2008, but dissent against the Nano project had been brewing immediately after it was announced in 2006. “They (the Left Front) have been trying to get Buddhadeb to address the people since the past four years, but couldn’t. The atmosphere wasn’t conducive. Today, the turnout proves the opposition has lost some ground,” said Udayan Das, president, Singur Shilpa Bikash O Unnayan Committee. The body is seen as a frontal organisation of Bhattacharjee’s CPI(M) by the Opposition
No black flags were shown in protest today, something Bhattacharjee might have got used to over the past year on his visits to the districts.
The CM had nothing new to offer to Singur and its people, except a promise that the site would be used for an industrial project. “If all goes well, we will have a car factory,” he said, without clarifying whether he meant Tata Motors.
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Living on hope
But Das is upbeat. He has recently received a letter from a Tata Motors’ senior official. “A S Puri, vice president, Tata Motors, has written to us saying that he will be visiting Singur next time when he is in Kolkata,” Das said. In October, Tata Motors had said the environment was still not conducive for the company to return, in response to a letter from the committee.
The Singur Shilpa Bikash O Unnayan is also taking up the case of farmers who were unwilling to give up their land for th erstwhile project. “We have requested the government to waive the extra expense that they will have to bear just for legal paperwork if they collect their compensation through the court,” Das said.
Some farmers, who had joined a mass agitation against takeover, may have moved to Das’ camp. But the unwilling farmers in Singur are 2,000, accounting for 80 per cent of the total land losers. Most of them are waiting for the assembly elections, which is at best six months away.
“Let us see whether Didi returns our land,” Bhuban Bag, an unwilling land loser, said. He lives in hope, his best bet, while Singur remains divided between those who want Tata back and those who want their land back. There are no fence-sitters here.