Expressing concern over foreign engineers being confined at the Tata Motors plant at Singur on Thursday, Left Front chairman Biman Bose made a fresh appeal to Trinamool Congress to sit for dialogue with the West Bengal Government to resolve the stalemate.
"Mamata Banerjee has assured from the beginning that the agitation will be conducted in a Gandhian manner with no intimidation or threat. But what happened yesterday cannot be dubbed as the Gandhian way of satyagraha," Bose told reporters in Kolkata.
He said engineers from Japan, Korea and Singapore working at the project were intimidated and terrorised.
"They are guests of our country. The way they were intimidated is against the culture of Bengal."
Trinamool leader in Singur, Becharam Manna, denied intimidation saying "the workers have been urged to leave the factory on their own to express solidarity with us."
The expressway on which the factory is coming up witnessed huge traffic snarls and long queues of trucks. However, the party leaders said the traffic congestion on NH-2 was 'man-made'.
"The state administration at the behest of the CPI-M isn't deliberately using alternative roads which had always been used during agitations before the Durgapur Expressway was built," thundered Banerjee. Mitra too, echoed the same sentiment
Strangely, their words were seconded by RSP leader and West Bengal PWD Minister Kshiti Goswami in a local daily on Friday morning. An article quoted him saying that 'Durgapur Expressway blockade is not actually as damaging as it is being portrayed out to be. There are several other roads connecting Singur with Kolkata'.
Image: Purnendu Bose (L) and Madan Mitra (R)
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