NDA seeks President's intervention to save Mamata's life

New Delhi, Dec 28 (UNI) Former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee today led an NDA delegation to President A P J Adbul Kalam to seek his personal intervention to save the life of Trinamool Congress leader Mamata Banerjee who has been on an indefinite hunger strike for the past 24 days against the acquisition of fertile land for the Tata Motors project in Singur in West Bengal.

BJP Parliamentary Party spokesman Vijay Kumar Malhotra told mediapersons that they expressed their concern at the deteriorating health of the Trinamool leader and regretted that the UPA Government at the Centre and the CPI-M led West Bengal government were showing ''utmost indifference'' towards her.

The delegation said that the UPA Government as well as the State Government would be responsible if anything untoward happens to Ms Banerjee. It wanted Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to speak to Ms Banerjee to persuade him to give up her fast.

Expressing its solidarity with Ms Banerjee's agitation to uphold the land and livelihood of the farmers in the face of ''high decibel propaganda'' of the CPI-M, the NDA delegation claimed that the farmers were being terrorised by the police and the CPI-M cadres to part with their lands and accept whatever compensation was handed over to them.

''There is no justification for taking over multi-crop farm land and uproot the agriculturists when the industry could be allowed to come up in uncultivated waste lands or be located in single crop producing land,'' Mr Malhotra said.

A resolution adopted at NDA's meeting yesterday had asked the Government to talk to the Tatas and return the lands of farmers who were not willing to part with the land and who had not availed the compensation. Besides, it should renegotiate with the Tatas to give up multi-crop land and accept an alternative site for their township and real estate project.

NDA convener George Fernandes, BJP President Rajnath Singh and party leaders Sushma Swara and Mr Vijay Kumar Malhotra, JD(U) leaders Sharad Yadav and Prabhunath Singh, BJD Braj Kishore Tripathi, Akali Dal (Badal) leader Sukhvinder Singh were part of the delegation.

UNI KAS/MCN VD KN1826