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“Discussion on land issue positive”

Marcus Dam

Governor requests Opposition to suspend agitation; traffic resumes near Tata Motors project site

— Photo: Sushanta Patronobish

A step forward: West Bengal Governor Gopalkrishna Gandhi with the former Chief Justice of Bombay High Court, Chittatosh Mukerjee (left) at the Raj Bhavan in Kolkata on Friday.

KOLKATA: “The discussion on the subject of land was positive,” a leader of the delegation representing the Trinamool Congress-backed Krishi Jami Raksha (Protection of Farmland) Committee said after a meeting on Singur issue in Raj Bhavan.

The Governor was instrumental in getting the two sides to the discussion table following requests by both Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and Trinamool chief Mamata Banerjee to take the initiative in resolving the Singur problem.

Justice Chittatosh Mukherji, former Chief Justice of the Bombay High Court, who had agreed to advise the Governor on legal aspects during the course of the discussions, was present.

The talks scheduled for 10 a.m. were deferred to 4 p.m. following a request from the State government “to postpone the session for a few hours,” according to Mr. Gandhi.

The Chief Minister said the Governor requested the Opposition to suspend the agitation at Singur and clear the Durgapur Expressway [national highway] that passes by the project site to that the discussions could be held in a cordial atmosphere. “Our reaction was that they [the Opposition] should comply with the request of the Governor.”

Mr. Bhattacharjee wondered how the agitation could be described as peaceful by leaders of the movement when workers and engineers of Tata Motors had been obstructed and threatened.

The atmosphere would vastly improve if the Opposition considered “methods of confining the protest to peaceful means that did not offend the law of the land,” the Governor said.

No blockade: Mamata

Staff Reporter reports from Singur:

For the first time in 13 days since the Trinamool Congress-led agitation began, there was movement of traffic along one of the two flanks of the Durgapur Expressway in front of the Tata Motors project site on Friday.

The other flank, however, remained closed owing to the agitation.

The Calcutta High Court, in a recent ruling, had instructed the authorities concerned to clear the highway of obstructions.

Hundreds of trucks passed by the site as the police and Trinamool Congress supporters made way for their smooth passage. Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee repeatedly requested party supporters and onlookers to make way for the traffic.

She said, “We had never blocked the highway and today’s traffic movement is example enough to prove that.”

Earlier in the day, West Bengal Home Secretary Ashok Mohan Chakravarty visited the site and held meeting with the district magistrate and Superintendent of Police of the Hooghly district.

Talking to journalists, he said, “We are receiving a lot of reports from the site and so had come here to take a look.” He added that the way the agitators had blocked one side of the highway was illegal.

In support

In the evening, a 3,000-strong procession was taken out by Singur residents in support of industrialisation and in demand of re-opening the Tata Motors factory.

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