New Delhi: Refuting the Trinamool Congress claims that owners of a major portion of land acquired in Singur had refused to part with it, Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader Sitaram Yechury said the Left Front Government had not committed any blunder on land acquisition for industrial projects.

"The question of land acquisition is a right which the State Government has. Any other authority that may issue any other orders is absolutely out of its mandate," Yechury told Karan Thapar in the CNN-IBN programme `Devil's Advocate.'

Reacting to newspaper reports that Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee had admitted a "big blunder" vis-à-vis the Nandigram SEZ project, the CPI (M) Polit Bureau member said: "There is no blunder...I'm sorry. ...I know what he said."

Maintaining that the Haldia Development Authority (HDA) had issued "some instruction" for land acquisition in Nandigram, he said that it cannot issue a land acquisition notice as it "has no authority" to do so.

Furthermore, as soon as the Haldia action came to light, the State Government immediately acted to revoke the order, Mr. Yechury was quoted as saying.

On the Singur issue, he refuted Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee's claim that owners of about 464 acres, out of a total of 954 acres of land required for the Tata Motors' car project, had refused to sell their land.

Mamata's claims

"What she [Mamata] has given is being inquired into by the State Government and till now, 350 acres of what she claims as part of the acquired land is outside of this land," Mr. Yechury said.

He asserted that the affidavits filed by some landowners "do not fall under the purview of the acquired land. 350 acres is entirely from outside." Asked whether the Singur and Nandigram issues had damaged his party and the Government in West Bengal, Mr. Yechury said: "Not at all. No.

"We have brought this entire question of compensation to the national agenda. The compensation we are giving in Singur is the best and the most exemplary. And now, everybody will have to follow suit," he claimed.

No brute force

Questioned about claims by Trinamool and others like Arundhati Roy and Sumit Sarkar that brutal physical violence had been used to force people in Singur to surrender their land, the CPI (M) leader said: "I contest very very strongly that all of this happened through brute force.

"When Mamata Banerjee and Medha Patkar were there on dharna, you had people queuing up to collect compensation cheques. Why? Why are they accepting this package," he asked. — PTI

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