Mamata protests against urban land acquisition attempt

Kolkata, Apr 22 (UNI) All India Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee today charged the West Bengal government with forcibly acquiring land earmarked for construction of a school building in the elite Golf Green area on the southern fringe of the city.

Speaking at a public rally near the site this evening, in protest against the alleged move of the West Bengal Housing Board to acquire land within the Golf Green complex for construction of a multi-storeyed building for business purposes.

Alleging that even after the Nandigram and Singur fiasco, the state government was making deliberate attempts to acquire land even in the urban areas and that too within the heart of the city, Ms Banerjuee said if the housing board had made any further move to hand over the land to any private promoter and start ''illegal'' construction, the party will leave no stone unturned to protest such move.

Hailing the spontaneous protest organised by the residents of Golf Green against the alleged government move, Ms Banerjee said the land was clearly earmarked in government records for the construction of a building for a secondary school along with a football ground.

Citing the government records in this connection, she said that it was not clear as to why even after the nation-wide protest against the government's faulty land acquisition policy in Singur and Nandigram for industrial purposes, the government was still handing over another piece of land within the city to private promoters for alleged business purposes.

Also speaking on the occassion, local MLA Arup Biswas asid, ''He would lead a delegation from the Golf Green area to the Housing and Public Health Engineering Minister Gautam Deb to seek an explanation regarding the alleged government move.

He said ''In case of any unsatisfactory reply from the minister a major agitational programme will be launched in the city.

Meanwhile, hundreds of residents of this area organised a protest rally against the alleged move to hand over the open space to private promoters for the construction of a multi-storeyed building.

UNI