Date:27/08/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/08/27/stories/2008082755781300.htm

National

We have been betrayed: Mamata

Special Correspondent

KOLKATA: “The State government has betrayed us. It has insulted the Opposition,” Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee said at Singur on Tuesday.

She was referring to Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee ruling out the return of 400 acres that she claims was forcibly acquired for setting up the Tata Motors project, at an interaction with city industrialists earlier in the day.

Addressing supporters from a podium outside the project site, Ms. Banerjee said that the agitation by her party and its allies, that entered the third day, would continue till the land was returned. The “Nano” might not roll out of the factory unless the demand was met, she threatened.

She described the Chief Minister’s letter to her on Monday inviting her for talks on the Singur issue as “totally negative.”

“We are for a solution… I am not against talks, provided the 400 acres is returned. But he is now saying that not a piece of land can be returned,” she said.

Ms. Banerjee also called for a two-hour block on major roads across the State on Friday. She challenged the government to use force to suppress the agitation.

The number of trucks stranded along the Durgapur Expressway – a key road linking Kolkata with different parts of south Bengal – has been growing because of obstructions caused by the agitation. The District Magistrate, Hooghly, was sent to the site of the agitation to persuade Ms. Banerjee to open up one side of the expressway. But she declined to meet him, a senior police official said here.