No Singur project in PM Narendra Modi's speech, says Bengal industries minister; TMC calls BJP netas ‘disappointed’

KOLKATA: Bengal industries minister Shashi Panja took a dig at the Prime Minister, saying he did not announce any project for Singur in his speech at a rally there on Sunday, leaving Bengal BJP’s netas and workers “disappointed” and “frustrated”.“We understand their (BJP netas’ and workers’) disappointment and frustration. Like them, we, too, hoped the Prime Minister would announce some schemes or projects for Singur. There was none,” Panja said.Trinamool also spoke out against “attempts at appropriating Durga Puja” and Narendra Modi’s reference to “maha jungle raj” while describing Bengal’s law-and-order situation and his call for “real change”.Trinamool reserved its sharpest attack for BJP’s pre-Singur rally pitch on “flight of industry” from Bengal and the saffron party’s claim that it is trying to revive industry in the state.Speaking to reporters, Panja said, “The PM spoke on multiple topics but avoided specifics. His speech did not offer any hope (for Singur).” Trinamool hit back at BJP’s lack-of-industry narrative through an X post that said the Bengal govt “has approved a Rs 500-crore state-of-the-art warehouse project on 11.35 acres in Singur, strengthening e-commerce logistics for players like Amazon and Flipkart and creating large-scale employment.”

Bengal transport minister Snehashis Chakraborty said, “Singur agitation has a broader pan-India perspective that a myopic BJP cannot see. The apex court had struck down Singur land acquisition, validating what Mamata Banerjee was fighting for. The Centre had to junk its colonial-era land acquisition law and specify that if 80% owners do not consent (to taking away their plots), land cannot be acquired for private projects. Mamata Banerjee’s fight had resonated across the country.”Bengal junior minister Becharam Manna said, “Singur wasn’t an industry debate in the first place. It was whether multi-crop land can be acquired forcibly. Had the Left Front wanted, industry and agriculture could have co-habitated in Singur.”Trinamool MP Partha Bhowmik spoke about BJP’s sudden “memory loss” and the “attempt to appropriate Durga Puja and Bengali language.”Bhowmik said, “BJP had moved court to stall Bengal govt grants to Durga Puja committees.

CM Banerjee came to office in 2011 and we do not need to remind anyone about her efforts to elevate Durga Puja to the world stage.”Taking a dig at Modi’s call for change in Bengal, party national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee said, “The outsiders from Delhi, the landlords of Gujarat will change, we will not change.”Speaking at a roadshow in Nadia’s Chapra, Banerjee said Modi’s speech at a rally in Malda on Saturday showed that BJP wanted to “change the people of Bengal”, not improve their lives.

“The people of Bengal have not changed,” he said, alleging the Centre was targeting Bengal because it had refused to submit politically.Banerjee accused the Union govt of punishing Bengal by suspending welfare schemes for the state. He referred to the suspension of funds for the 100-day work scheme and delays in housing schemes, claiming these were attempts at “teaching” the people of Bengal a lesson. “You are trying to change people through punishment — by stopping work and taking away their voting right,” he said.Bengal, he asserted, would not accept any change by compromising on its self-respect. “Bengal will not change by bowing its head, by submitting at your feet or by selling its spine,” Banerjee said.