Opposition trains gun on Trinamool Congress as tribunal awards compensation for Tata

Kolkata: In the wake of an arbitration tribunal awarding Tata Motors Ltd Rs 766 crore in compensation, recoverable from the West Bengal government, the Opposition parties have come out to slam the ruling Trinamool Congress.

The compensation pertains to the company's capital investment losses in the stalled Singur manufacturing plant. 

The BJP, and the CPM on Tuesday used the opportunity to shame the ruling Trinamool Congress over the issue that is not merely emotive but also a turning point in Bengal’s history. The Trinamool has maintained a calculated silence.

Till Tuesday evening, an official response was awaited from the state government, and speculation was rife about a possible legal move from its side against the tribunal’s order.

Leading the charge, BJP-Bengal leader Suvendu Adhikari said the Trinamool should pay up the compensation from its own funds. Speaking preemptively, Adhikari said that there will be protests if the state’s funds are used for payment. “We presume that the state may go for an appeal, but it will not be of any help,” he said.

In a post on X, Adhikari held Trinamool chief Mamata Banerjee responsible for the loss of industrialisation opportunities in the state. “Generations of job seekers have been deprived of employment near their homes. The land returned to the farmers is of no use for agricultural purposes…,” he stated.

Bengal’s CPM secretary Md Salim, on X, stated that the state is “paying the price for the arrogance” and “destructive politics” of the Trinamool chief, and “paying the penalties for demolition of a near-complete manufacturing unit along with the dream of jobseekers”.

A press statement by the CPI (ML) Liberation, issued in the name of the party’s general secretary, Dipankar Bhattacharya, stated that compensation for the “aborted and abandoned Singur project is a cruel injustice to the people of West Bengal”. 

In 2008, the Trinamool chief spearheaded an agitation at Singur against the acquisition of lands from unwilling farmers, for the project. Subsequently, the carmaker shifted the factory to Sanand in Gujarat.

In a regulatory filing on Monday, the company mentioned that "it has been held to be entitled to recover Rs 765.78 crore from West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation Limited, a nodal agency under the state’s industry, commerce and enterprises department".

The amount is to be recovered along with an interest of 11% per annum from September 2016 till the actual recovery thereof. The claimant has also been held entitled to recover Rs 1 crore as the cost of the proceedings.

The latest development will mount extra political pressure on Bengal’s ruling party as several of its leaders are going through ignominious situations. Trinamool MP Mahua Moitra is defending herself in a “cash-for-query” complaint. At the state level, the party’s senior leader Jyotipriya Mallick was recently arrested by the Enforcement Directorate and is being probed in connection with a ration distribution scam.