Union Railway minister and Trinamool Congress leader today gave Singur—the erstwhile site for Nano that made her famous—a miss.
Banerjee was supposed to hand over agri-retail outlets, part of the Perishable Cargo Centre at Singur, to 16 needy farmers who were part of her movement against the land acquisition for Nano, but she did not turn up for the event.
Railway officials announced at 4pm that she could not be present for the event scheduled for 5:30pm due to unavoidable circumstances. Around the same time she addressed a press meet at her Kolkata residence, where she spoke against joint operations at Lalgarh.
Half of the people who had gathered to see her did not believe that she could possibly give Singur a miss. The other half knew that Singur had outlived its utility. It was past its “use-by” date for the leaders, who once fought against the West Bengal government alongside them.
Ratan Bag, an unwilling land loser, was not surprised. He had half-expected this to happen. It’s been four years since Bag lost his four bigha plot to the Nano.
“I can see Didi flagging off trains and re-painting the stations. What did we get? Nothing. I want to collect my cheque but the local leaders say I will have to appoint lawyers to collect my cheque.” Even six months back, Bag had seemed more confident of his leader and her goals.
Haripada Das rued, “Our leaders have forgotten us. We can’t even approach Didi any more.” According to Das while Banerjee led the land agitation, she visited Singur 65 times. Those were different times. Since the Lok Sabha elections Banerjee found time to visit Singur twice, both times for Railway events.
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The number of disgruntled unwilling farmers is growing steadily. Sujoy Das is about 60. He had very little land, which was taken for the project. Now, he has very little resources to run his family. “What will happen to us? Who is bothered about us?” asks Das.
These were the people who reared their head after the Panchayat polls that eroded the Left Front base in early 2008. They were just 20 per cent of the total land losers, but with Banerjee’s support they managed to go down in the books of history as Tata Motors pulled out the project later that year.
Since then the Left has done miserably in all the elections, the biggest blow being the Lok Sabha, which rendered Banerjee’s party as the UPA government’s largest ally.
The event was a turning point for the unwilling farmers of Singur. “The leaders turn a deaf ear when we tell them about our problems,” said Bag. He warns that they can do another ‘Singur’ with the growing resentment among the unwilling land losers. Any one listening?