With the change of power, West Bengal is experiencing a tectonic shift in its political and administrative landscape. With the end of the 15-year rule of Trinamool Congress, a wave of rapid changes has gripped the state. Amid this, West Bengal Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari said the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government would bring the Tata Group back in the state. The Chief Minister also accused the previous Left and Trinamool Congress regimes of either forcibly acquiring land or merely indulging in “photo sessions” in the name of industrialisation. Promising to revive West Bengal’s industrial fortunes, Adhikari said his government would attract investment and create jobs without repeating the mistakes that had triggered the Singur and Nandigram agitations.
“We don’t want to indulge in lies and organise photo sessions like the previous government did to attract industries,” the Chief Minister asserted.
“The government is working on its land acquisition policy. We are against forcible land acquisition, like what happened in Singur and Nandigram during the erstwhile Left Front regime. At the same time, we are also against the TMC’s policy of doing nothing while only holding photo sessions and spreading lies about bringing industries,” he said.
Why did Tata pull out of Singur?
Tata Motors’ small car project at Singur in Hooghly district remains one of the defining episodes in Bengal’s political history. The Left Front government, under Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, announced in 2006 that it would provide 977 acres of land in Singur to help Tata Motors set up its flagship Rs 1-lakh Nano car factory.ย
The state administration acquired the land from local farmers, but around 2,000 small landholders refused to accept the compensation announced by the government. Mamata Banerjee too joined the protest and launched a 26-day hunger strike in Kolkata after she was barred from entering Singur. Despite protests, the state administration begins fencing off the acquired land.ย
While protests continued, Tata Motors ceremonially initiated construction of the plant and invested around 1,400 crore over the next year. But protests escalated as construction neared completion. Blockades stopped workers, factory walls were breached, and employees faced direct physical intimidation. Eventually, Tata Motors pulled out of West Bengal and shifted the Nano project to Sanand, Gujarat, in 2008.ย