Farmers Movement Archive

BJP demands protection for Bengal’s farmers, launches agitation in Singur

Weeks after the Centre repealed the three controversial farm laws following the nationwide protest, the Bengal unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Tuesday started an agitation at Singur in Hooghly district demanding protection for the state’s farmers.The Trinamool Congress (TMC) government has failed to regulate the retail price of raw materials, such as fertilizers, and procurement of crops from farmers is irregular, BJP leaders alleged.They started a three-day sit-in demonstration at Singur where an agitation led by chief minister Mamata Banerjee against the acquisition of farmland forced the Tata Group to shift its proposed small car project to Sanand in Gujarat during the Left Front rule in 2008.The district police did not allow the BJP peasants front to set up a podium.Though the BJP won the local Hooghly Lok Sabha seat in 2019, it failed to secure the Singur assembly segment in the March-April polls despite fielding the TMC’s the then incumbent lawmaker Rabindranath Bhattacharya who joined the saffron camp. Bhattacharya had won from Singur four times in a row between 2001 and 2016.Top Bengal BJP leaders, including state president Sukanta Majumdar, took part in the agitation that was led by the leader of the opposition in the Bengal assembly, Suvendu Adhikari, who left the TMC in December last year.After coming to power for the first time in 2011, the TMC said that it was open to the idea of setting up industries in Singur but not without securing the interest of farmers. On June 14 that year, the assembly passed the Singur Land Rehabilitation and Development Bill 2011. In his speech, Adhikari, who was earlier a member of the state cabinet, focused on the 997.11 acres of multi-crop farmland that then chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee acquired for the Tata project. A portion of this land is still lying useless because the cement work done for the project made it unfit for farming. Adhikari accused Banerjee of ruining job opportunities as opposition leader and failing to provide a livelihood to local people as the chief minister.“Where are the promises you made? Today, the farmers are in distress and the local people of Singur have no work. Fertilizers are being sold at a premium by middlemen. Farmers are not getting the right price for their crops. You (the chief minister) said a lot of things against the Centre’s farm laws that were supposed to protect farmers. What have you done for them?” said Adhikari.After the assembly polls, Bengal’s industry minister Partha Chatterjee said his government was ready to welcome the Tata Group to Bengal but clarified that the agricultural land in Singur would not be used for setting up engineering industries.“Why would the Tatas want to return to Singur? The land has already been given back to farmers. We are planning to come up with agro-based industries in Singur as the area’s economy is based on agriculture,” Chatterjee said in July.On Tuesday, however, Chatterjee and other TMC leaders countered the BJP politically, skirting the issue of employment. “At a time when the campaign is on for the December 19 Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) elections, the BJP has gone to Singur because it knows that it cannot win a single seat,” said Chatterjee.“If the BJP enjoyed the confidence of Singur farmers, it would have won the local assembly seat. This is nothing but diversionary tactics to shift focus from the KMC elections,” said transport minister Firhad Hakim.

Hindustan Times

14-12-2021

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