Calcutta, Sept. 24: Governor Gopalkrishna Gandhi today said there was “scope and need” for both industry and agriculture but “the first imperative was that of a dialogue, not when a crisis hangs overhead, but well in advance”.

He prefixed this with the words that “the way in which agriculture and industry are seen juxtaposed is not right”.

The comments, during his address at the Second Green Revolution Summit organised by the Indian Chamber of Commerce, are significant as they come after the government and the Opposition began a dialogue at his initiative, two and a half years after the agitation began over farmland acquisition in Singur.

“We will have to think carefully on the location of industrial ventures not turning to arable land before exhausting other options.” Since land is limited and precious, it holds a special value to farmers, he said. “It (land) is not an impersonal, dematerialised share certificate you buy and sell with every swing of the sensex. We have to be sensitive to the responses of those who lose land and livelihood to projects. Empirical evidence has shown that options other than compulsory acquisition are possible,” Gandhi said.

Government officials, while agreeing that Gandhi was “correct in his assessment and understanding”, said it did not hold true in case of Singur. They pointed out that they had started a dialogue and held five all-party meetings, as required under the land acquisition act. “We had held five meetings chaired by the Hooghly district magistrate,” a senior official said.

The Trinamul had attended all five meetings but walked out of the last one, saying the government only wanted the party to give its “rubber stamp” on its decision.

“If the government has already decided to acquire the land, why were we called?” Trinamul MLA Rabindranath Bhattacharya had asked.

Officials said Trinamul had made “no effort” towards a consensus. “The essence of a dialogue is to come to some understanding. But Trinamul had decided not to come to any agreement,” an official said.

Trinamul MLA Saugata Ray “applauded” the governor’s comments. “He has rightly said that land acquisition should be done by persuasion and negotiation and, that, too, not at the last moment.”

CPM state secretariat member Benoy Konar said the governor’s comments only reflected the “feelings in Mamata Banerjee’s camp”.

“The government had initiated a dialogue with the Opposition not when a crisis began hanging over our head, as the governor has implied in his speech, but at the time of the land acquisition in Singur. If we had not tried to convince the farmers, how is it that more than 10,000 people have agreed to sell their land and collect the compensation cheques?” Konar said.

“It is Mamata Banerjee who had spurned the chief minister’s repeated offers for dialogue over the past two years before the Raj Bhavan meeting,” Konar added.