Bengal Opposition and ruling party play blame game on Nandigram anniversary

Kolkata: Leader of Opposition in the West Bengal Assembly, Suvendu Adhikari, on Monday accused Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee of betraying the martyrs of the 2006-08 Nandigram anti-land acquisition movement, saying the sacrifices of farmers were used merely to bring her to power.

Speaking at a rally on the occasion of Martyrs’ Day in Nandigram, Adhikari said the movement had not yielded the change dreamt of by thousands of farmers in the region.

"A corrupt, dynastic, Hindu tormentor and revengeful regime has taken over since 2011 exploiting the Nandigram movement. We have not been able to usher in real change for the people," he said.

Adhikari, a former close aide of Banerjee who joined the BJP in 2020, also said, "I do own up my mistake being part of that movement. But we won’t repeat the same blunder again. The bottle has changed but not the old wine. Let’s usher in real change in 2026 polls," while urging people to vote the BJP to power.

Accusing Banerjee of betraying the martyrs, Adhikari said, "She had implicated 117 local land movement leaders in nine cases of murder." "While not a single case was lodged against her, the administration lodged 42 cases against me," he said, adding that the families were allegedly "deprived for being associated with BJP."

The Nandigram movement had taken off following reports of setting up a petro-chemical hub by the then Buddhadev Bhattacharya government and took a violent turn with reports of firing, allegedly by police, on unarmed protestors leading to a number of casualties in 2007.

In the subsequent years, the Left Front suffered electoral reverses in panchayat and Lok Sabha polls and finally the 2011 Assembly polls.

A day earlier, Adhikari had promised that if the BJP came to power in the 2026 Assembly polls, Tata Motors would invest heavily in Bengal, alluding to the company’s exit from Singur in 2008.

After Adhikari left the Martyrs’ Day programme at Sonachura, TMC activists led by Sk Sufiyan arrived and washed the site "to symbolically purify it" before paying tribute to those who died in the 2007 firing.

"The Nandigram movement had never been marked by any religious identities as people from different communities together fought the misrule and dictatorship of the then CPI(M)-led government. The contribution of Mamata Banerjee to spearhead the entire movement cannot be belittled by betrayers like Adhikari," Sufiyan, office-bearer of the TMC-controlled Bhumi Uchhed Pratirodh Committee (BUPC), said.

Earlier in the day, Banerjee commemorated Nandigram Divas, saying, “We can never forget the sacrifices of martyrs of Nandigram and elsewhere in the world.” TMC National General Secretary Abhishek Banerjee recalled how the "brave people of Nandigram rose up against the barbaric attempt by the then Left Front government to snatch away their land, dignity and right to live with honour."

"The face of the oppressor has only changed, the oppression remains the same. The harmads (pirates) of yesterday have returned as the 'jaallads' (butchers) of today. Where once the Left front relied on covert ''scientific rigging", the present regime resorts to "silent invisible rigging," the young TMC heavyweight said in his X post.

Alluding to the BJP government at the Centre, he said, "Bengal taught the Left front a lesson it will never forget, today, we send the same message to the zamindars (landlords) of Delhi. Bengal will resist relentlessly and resolutely." "We will crush their arrogance in the ballot box and consign this politics of exclusion to the dustbin of history," Banerjee said apparently referring to the SIR exercise by the Election Commission before Bengal polls.