Days after ‘legally’ driving out Tatas from Singur that tended to blight her industry friendly claims, Mamata Banerjee on Monday reached Munich apparently to make up for the loss by getting big ticket investment from the likes of BMW.
The Bengal Chief Minister who earlier attended the sainthood ceremony of Mother Teresa at the Vatican started for the German industrial city where she would inspect the BMW plant upon the automobile giant’s invitation.
She was likely to meet some world industry captains at a global summit and discuss investment prospects in Bengal, sources at Bengal State secretariat Nabanna said adding State Finance Minister Amit Mitra and Kolkata Mayor Sovan Chatterjee had already reached the German city to take part in the industrial meet.
Back in Bengal inside sources also said Trinamool Congress had started “track II diplomacy” to convince farmers of Singur to “have faith in Didi (the Chief Minister) and part with their land to accommodate an industrial venture as big as the one set up by the Tata Motors.
In the wake of a Supreme Court order the huge Tata Nano super structure standing on 997 acres forcibly acquired land by the then left Front Government would soon give way to large open field for which work was already in progress.
The Apex Court has directed the Government to return the land to their original owners in 12 week’s time. Thanks to the order bulldozers and earth movers had been pressed into service to remove the encroachments. “Already about 200 acres have been cleared and rest would soon be reclaimed” said a senior official of Hooghly district where the plant stands.
Meanwhile, sources said upon Banerjee’s instructions the Bengal Government and the ruling Trinamool Congress was working on a two-pronged strategy: returning the land to the farmers by one hand and then convincing them into surrendering the same to the Government for industrial purpose.
The Chief Minister’s Munich sojourn is part of the same strategy ie to offer a readymade field at Singur to prospective investors. In fact a large number of “unwilling farmers” who had refused to accept cheque from the erstwhile Government for their acquired lands have gone on record saying that they indeed want an industry to be set up in thearea.
Reports also said that backroom parleys with the farmers had already been started by local MlA Becharam Manna to suit the politico-economic goal of the Mamata Banerjee Government. “Now that we have shown Budhhadeb Bhattacharjee what the farmers can do to a Government that forcibly acquires their land we are game for talks on giving the same to Didi who is our guardian and who will definitely do good for the region,” said Sushanta Pal a local farmer.