Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee: Storm in a saucer?

Calcutta, July 10: Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee will address party workers on Thursday to explain why industrialisation is the “need of the hour” and why the dependence on agriculture has to be minimised to “carry Bengal forward”.

The CPM’s Calcutta district committee members have been asked to attend the meeting at Promode Dasgupta Bhavan, the party’s city unit headquarters.

Sources said Bhattacharjee is going to give an elaborate justification of his pro-industry policies and emphasise that Bengal has no alternative path to progress.

The government would acquire around 40,000 acres for industry in the next six months. The chief minister, the sources said, would try to convince the party’s rank and file that the government intends to go about it without “hampering farmers’ interests’’.

The address, the sources said, will contain the message that farmers would be “suitably” compensated for the land they part with and that it would be the responsibility of the party’s peasants’ wing to convince them and ensure a smooth handover.

“Our chief minister will explain the tasks to be undertaken for the state’s progress and the role of the seventh Left Front government in taking Bengal to new heights,’’ said Rabin Deb, a Calcutta district secretariat member.

Reports of growing confusion in the CPM over land and land reforms minister Abdur Rezzak Mollah’s statement that Bengal’s food security would be threatened if farmland is taken away for industry at this rate has landed the party in a spot.

CPM state secretariat member Benoy Konar tried to clarify yesterday that Mollah had not spoken against industrialisation, but the chief minister is apparently unhappy with his frequent outbursts against the government’s industrial policy.

The land minister had earlier opposed farmland acquisition for a special economic zone in South 24-Parganas.

A source said Bhattacharjee “is expected to speak his mind” on Thursday.

The chief minister has already met some of the Left Front partners to discuss land acquisition, though not every one of them appears satisfied with the talks.

But the trouble brewing in his own party has also necessitated a prompt response.

A CPM leader said the chief minister would tell his party colleagues that only a fourth of the land needed for the Tatas’ project at Singur is multi-crop and the hue and cry being raised over land acquisition there is “uncalled for’’.

Bhattacharjee had recently told the Assembly that he could not dictate terms to investors on where they could set up shop.