Buddha joins Mamata for talks at Raj Bhawan

Kolkata, Sep 7 (UNI) Talks to resolve the Singur tangle inched towards a solution with Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee participating in the parleys at the invitation of Governor Gopalkrishna Gandhi here today.

The Governor had earlier invited Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee to participate in the discussions as a solution remained elusive even after two days of meetings between the government and the Opposition.

After holding talks with Ms Banerjee for one and half hours, Mr Gandhi invited the Chief Minister for discussions, indicating that the talks were headed towards a final stage of discussion.

The Chief Minister was holding talks with Ms Banerjee in presence of only the Governor as the delegations of both camps were not present.

Earlier, after an hour long meeting with Mr Bhattacharjee at Raj Bhavan, the Governor had sent a letter to Ms Banerjee, requesting her to take part in the talks.

The Chief Minister met the Governor to discuss the problem persisting over the proposed land-based rehabilitation package for the Singur landlosers.

Before this, an emergency meeting of the ruling Left Front empowered the Chief Minister to ''do whatever he thinks right to protect the interest of the local farmers without affecting the Tata Motors Nano car project.'' Mr Bhattacherjee was understood to have told the Governor that it was difficult to give more than 40 acres of land from within the walled planned area of the Tata project, but efforts should be on to locate as much land as possible from outside for rehabilitation of all the land losers.

EDS:Here pick up suitably from earlier series.

UNI KDG PL AKJ RK1740