TMC, Jamiat challenge West Bengal Govt

Trinamool Congress and Jamiat-e-Ulama-E-Hind on Monday threw an open challenge to the state government, declaring that they would march to Singur in spite of the state government clamping the Section 144 from Monday to February 14.

Jamiat-e-Ulama-E-Hind is supposed to hold a public meeting at Singur on February 7 while Trinamool Congress is scheduled to have it’s meeting in February 10.

“We will go there with lakhs of people. Lets see what the police can do to us,” both of them said at separate press conferences in the city.

Interestingly, hectic parleys are on behind the screen to bring Mamata Banerjee and Siddiqullah Chowdhury on the same platform to fight the State government from acquiring farmlands and homestead lands in different parts of Bengal for industries.

In an emergency meeting of the Jamiat-led Gana Unnayan O Jana Adhikar Sangram Samity (fighting for the farmers in Bengal) on Monday evening, the leaders agreed that they had no problems in allying with Mamata in this fight provided she called for a formal dialogue with their leader Siddiqullah Chowdhury.

Siddiqullah said, "It is the responsibility of the government on how to prevent us from marching to Singur on February 7. The chief minister has branded our organisation as communal.

"His statement may lead to communal riot in the state. But we are non-communal. We will peacefully protest against the forcible acquisition of farm land at Singur."

Mamata also accused the UPA government at Centre of helping the Left Front government in re-imposing of prohibitory orders in an undemocratic way at Singur.

"I am sorry to say that they are helping the state government in every means. I have no language to describe the chief minister’s undemocratic act. Whatever he is doing, he is doing with central help. Centre has a role to play in this situation since when the minority is in trouble they can always interfere," she said, after returning deferring her visit to Singur, the site of the Tata Motors small car project site where fresh 144 has been clamped from today for a period of 10 days.

Incidentally, Chief Minister is scheduled to have a rally at Singur on February 15. “The order had been promulgated in a calculated manner for 10 days so that Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee was able to address his meeting at Singur on February 15,” she said.

Left Front leaders, however, asserted that the Chief Minister would hold the rally outside the area where Section 144 has been clamped.

Announcing a statewide blockade and meetings for an hour tomorrow, Mamata said, “We will block roads from 2 pm to 3pm on Tuesday, rally from Subodh Mullick Square to Esplanade on Wednesday and protest meeting at Chinsurah on Thursday and Singur march on February 10,” she said.

The Trinamool chief was also critical that the police were disallowing party workers on the national highway, which, she said, was far from Singur. “I fail to understand why the police are obstructing my workers on the national highway when there is no prohibitory order there,” she said.

Email Rahul Das: rahul.das@hindustantimes.com
Email Arindam Sarkar: asarkar@hindustantimes.com