January 14, 2011
We don’t want revenge, we want change
Singur : Jan 13: Today Mamata Banerjee announced two very important messages regarding peace and development in the state. 1) In Bengal, we don’t want revenge, we want change. She reminded the Chief Minister that since your party has killed and massacred people, we won’t go for revenge. We will bring in change and the people will judge you. 2) Once in power, the first priority for the new government would be to solve the Singur issue. That means that the 400 acres of land that was acquired from the unwilling farmers would be returned and industry would be set up in the rest 600 acres. The developments in both industry and agricultural sectors would thus start from Singur only. Four and a half years back, when Mamata Banerjee started her movement in Singur, she was leading a party with only 30 members on the Assembly and she was the lone Member of Parliament. Contrast that to the picture Singur saw on Thursday. Today she is the Union Cabinet Minister for Railways and she has 19 Member of Parliaments in the Lok Sabha—which makes her party the second largest constituent of the ruling UPA. After the huge procession from Khaserbheri to Khaserchak, she reminded her promises about setting up a rail coach factory in Bengal and even hinted that if possible that would be set up in the remaining 600 acres of Singur itself. Mamata said she had written to the state government requesting it to return the 400 acres and hand over the rest of the land to the railways. “After a couple of letters, the state government did not say a word on my proposal,†she claimed.
