Mamata to seek land act amendment from PM

Kolkata, Dec 23: Making Singur a case for protecting farmers' right, the Trinamool Congress will urge Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to issue an ordinance to prevent acquisition of agricultural land.

"We will hand over a letter to the Prime Minister tonight calling for an amendment to the land act for the interest of peasants. Before getting it passed in the next session of Parliament, the Centre should issue an ordinance in this regard," Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee said.

Speaking from her dharna manch in the city's Esplanade area where she had been on an indefinite hunger strike for the past 20 days, Ms. Banerjee said the British colonial law on land was still prevailing to the detriment of farmers' interest and it should be changed immediately.

Coinciding with the Prime Minister's programme in the city, the party would also observe a condemnation day throughout the state tomorrow protesting acquisition of farm land for the Tatas' small car factory, she said.

The Prime Minister, who arrives here tonight, will be present at a programme of IISCO at Burnpur and at the platinum jubilee celebrations of Indian Statistical Institute (ISI) at Baranagar in the city tomorrow.

"Our condemnation is not against the Prime Minister. It is against the forcible acquisition of agricultural land and the lies being heaped by the Left Front Government," Ms.Banerjee said.

Alleging that Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee did not believe either in democracy or the law, the Trinamool chief said, "the way the land of farmers at Singur had been forcibly acquired and bulldozed brought to the fore the urgent need for amending the concerned act." Meanwhile, continuing with programmes of disrupting traffic, the Trinamool Congress today took out a novel procession of village women carrying empty pitchers in a symbolic protest against Singur land acquisition.

The procession that paraded the main thoroughfares in the Esplanade area, threw traffic out of gear for more than an hour.

"By taking away farmers' land for a car factory, the Government is poised to put the local people in starvation. The procession is a protest against this act," a Trinamool leader said.

Yesterday, Trinamool Congress workers obstructed vehicular traffic in the city and elsewhere for an hour as part of its ongoing agitational programme on the Singur issue.

Bare chested youth activists of the party had also taken out a procession on December 21 while women members blocked roads the day before.

UNI

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