KOLKATA: Taking a cue from Gandhi's 1930 Salt March, Trinamool Congress leader, Mamata Banerjee, launched here on Friday the first phase of her party's "Dandi March" in protest against the acquisition of agriculture land for the setting up of industry at Singur in West Bengal's Hooghly district. She warned Chief Minister, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee "not to play with fire" on the Singur issue. "... ..He will burn his fingers if he does so", she said.

Senior leaders of the Trinamool Congress and party supporters took out a procession up the streets of the city to north Kolkata to mark the beginning of the "Dandi March". It will resume its journey from there on Saturday and, after a night's halt, will reach Singur - the site of the proposed automobile manufacturing plant to be set up by Tata Motors.

The Trinamool Congress is demanding that the project be shifted from Singur, where the party claims a large tracts of land are being forcibly acquired by the State authorities for the proposed plant.

Ms Banerjee announced a series of such rallies in different districts of the State over the coming weeks and asserted that her party would not, under any circumstance, allow agricultural land to be converted to sites for industry.

``I hope good sense will prevail on the State Government and it will not give away any farmland for industrial purposes", she said.

The Trinamool Congress leadership has been maintaining that though it is not opposed to new industries being set up in the State it will protest any move by the State Government to acquire farmland for the purpose. Party workers would resist the handing over of land for the Singur project to Tata Motors, it has said.

The State Govt. has acquired most of nearly 1,000 acres of land for the Singur project.

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