Kolkata, Jun 14 (IANS): Close to 300 farmers in West Bengal's Singur, which had witnessed a violent anti-land acquisition stir over a decade back, signed a memorandum and submitted their land ownership bills demanding reindustrialisation in the area, a state BJP leader said.
"Today we held a meeting with the local farmers in Singur and listened to their demands. They want industrialisation there. Close to 300 farmers signed a memorandum and submitted the copy of the land 'parchas'. They believe that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is the only person who can fulfil their demand," BJP's Hoogly Lok Sabha MP Locket Chatterjee told IANS.
Singur, a rural hamlet in Hooghly district, was on the boil between 2006 and 2008 after the then Left Front government acquired 997.11 acres of land for setting up Tata Motor's small car factory.
Demanding return of 400 acres to farmers from whom land was allegedly taken against their will, the then opposition Trinamool Congress led by Mamata Banerjee spearheaded a violent and sustained movement that ultimately forced the automobile giant Tata Motors to shift its small car plant to Sanand in Gujarat.
"I appeal to Tata to come back to Singur. I also invite the other government and private industries as well. When a big industry is built, several small industries also prosper in the area. We want Singur to be transformed into an industrial town," Chatterjee said.
"We do not expect to get any support from the Trinamool Congress government in Bengal. So we are depending solely on Modi ji's intervention to bring in industries in Singur. We will send the memorandum of the farmers to him," she said.
In the 2019 polls, BJP's Chatterjee managed to take a lead of over ten thousand votes over state's ruling party in Singur assembly segment. Banerjee has termed the loss a a "matter of shame".
BJP leader Mukul Roy, once Banerjee's "right-hand man", and a prominent part of Trinamool's Singur agitation, has recently termed the movement "a mistake".
Following the 2019 poll result, farmers in the area had held a demonstration demanding industries to be set up on their land which still lies barren.