SINGUR: West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee’s struggle came full circle after 10 years and 5 months here on Thursday when she handed over physical possession of 90 acres of land acquired by Tata, to 2,216 farmers and initiated the process of physical handover of land to the farmers. “Of the 997.11 acres, land is fit for agriculture in 932 acres. In some 65 acres, the concrete has to be removed.
The process of land return would be completed by November 10,” the Trinamool supremo said, after symbolically commencing agriculture by sprinkling mustard seeds on the land. Land parchas (records) to all the 10,436 farmers and 800 cheques to uncompensated land-losers during Left Front regime were given on September 14. “Singur would be a model for land struggle around rest of the world.
A monument for the Singur farmers would be built here,” she said. Recalling her 26-day hunger strike, the West Bengal Chief Minister said, “Back on September 24, 2006, I had just asked about transparency in cheque distribution and we were attacked. Later, it has come to fore during survey that bogus cheques were issued then.” “Mamata’s 26 days of hunger strike, 14 days of dharna and martyrdom of 10 people have not gone waste. Our leader had only asked us to stay beside her during the struggle,” education minister and Mamata’s closest aide Partha Chatterjee said.
Likening Singur land struggle with pre-independence Tebhaga movement, panchayat and rural development minister Subrata Mukherjee said, “The struggle was of Mamata Banerjee, the victory is of Singur farmers.” The Supreme Court had on August 31 ordered Tata acquired land in Singur to be returned back to the farmers within 12 weeks.