Turning table on Mamata Banerjee, the Left Front Government of Bengal decided to acquire and hand over 320acres of firm land to Mamata Banerjee’s railway ministry for laying tracks in different districts of West Bengal.
Land and Land Reforms Minister Abdur Rezzak Mollah said on 14th Aug’09, “It is true that agricultural land has to be acquired and given to the railway ministry, but it is a fact that the project will benefit the people of the state.”
Mamata Bannerjee’s Trinomool Congress (TMC), which scored unprecedented electoral victories in last parliamentary elections by opposing land take over for Tata ‘Nano’ in Singur, thermal power project in Katwa, NH 34 expansion, Barasat-Raichak road construction etc, had to find alibi to justify the firm land take over.
TMC leader Partha Chatterjee had to hurry to explain, “Land to be acquired here (for railways) are narrow stretches and displacement would not be much. Besides the land is being acquired for greater good of the people.”
If what Partha Chatterjee said above is to be accepted then we must assume that land acquiring for construction of public sector power plant in Katwa, National Highway 34 expansion in North 24 Pargana and Power transmission pole erection at Rajarhat are not for the ‘greater good of the public.’
Pranab Mukherjee of Congress (INC) has the foresight of a mature politician when during the Parliamentary poll campaign he had said, “Those opposing projects meant for public purpose will find after coming to power that it has been suicidal on their part to do so.”
But Mamata must not have thought that the ‘land ghost’ created by her would visit her so soon. The land ‘Frankenstein’ she created would continue to visit her during her tenure as Railways Minister and more so if her Party comes to power in Bengal in the 2011 assembly elections.