— Photo: Sushanta Patronobish

STILL UNMOVED: The former Prime Minister, V. P. Singh, with Mamata Banerjee on the Trinamool Congress leader's 12th day of hunger strike in Kolkata on Friday. The hunger strike is against the acquisition of farmland in Singur by the West Bengal Government.

KOLKATA: The former Prime Minister, V.P. Singh, met fasting Trinamool Congress leader Mamata Banerjee and appealed to her, though unsuccessfully, to call off her hunger strike which entered its 12th day on Friday.

Veteran Marxist leader Jyoti Basu and West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee regretted that "misinformation and untruths" were being spread on the proposed car project at Singur in Hooghly district.

Mr. Bhattacharjee ruled out the application of force to break Ms. Banerjee's hunger strike and added that his Government would not retract from the project though it was still open to discussions. "Any move to go back on it would not be forgiven by the people," he said.

The Chief Minister, who held talks with Mr. Singh, later told newspersons that a distorted version of the facts was being presented to political leaders and certain members of the intelligentsia on the project. He explained to Mr. Singh the actualities such as the voluntary handing over of land by more than 90 per cent of the local farmers, the compensation they were provided with and plans for their rehabilitation by both the State Government and Tata Motors.

Mr. Singh had also been told about the repeated requests made by him (Mr. Bhattacharjee) to Ms. Banerjee to call off her hunger strike, all of which had been turned down.

"Talks very positive"

The former Prime Minister described his talks with Mr. Bhattacharjee as "very positive". "We not only discussed Singur but also the larger perspective of policy matters concerning the whole of the country," he added. He was on a brief visit to the city to see "if I can be of any small use [to resolve the stand-off between the State Government and Ms. Banerjee on the Singur issue] I will try in my humble way." He also called on Mr. Basu at the latter's residence.

Immediately after his meeting with the Chief Minister, Mr. Singh left for the manch, where Ms. Banerjee was on strike and spent nearly 50 minutes with her. The Trinamool Congress leader later asserted that her fast would continue until the State Government re-considered its plans for the project.

Earlier in the day, emerging from a meeting of the State Secretariat of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), Mr. Basu said if Mr. Singh had any suggestions the State Government could convey them to the Tata management as not all aspects "had yet been finalised".

© Copyright 2000 - 2009 The Hindu