Calcutta, Oct. 3: Bengal’s Opposition parties appeared to be running for cover tonight fearing a political backlash.

Hours after Mamata Banerjee publicly said relocating the project was a “a joint game plan of the Tatas and CPM”, she told her aides that the decision would send a “wrong message about us” to the people.

The Trinamul Congress chief told reporters: “It was a joint game plan of the Tatas and CPM to relocate the Nano project from Singur. The government has called in Tatababu to play their advocate. Why could no one know the details of the agreement signed between the government and the Tatas for the project? Why did Tata hold a press conference to malign us. Because it was a political joint venture.”

A Mamata aide quoted her as expressing concern about the fallout of what Tata did and said. “Ratan Tata told the chief minister today that the Opposition’s irresponsible and destructive politics had made him pull out. We will have to launch a campaign to counter these allegations,” Mamata was quoted as saying.

The Trinamul chief was closeted with some of her aides and two or three key members of the Save Farmland Committee this evening.

At Mamata’s insistence, Save Farmland Committee leader Pradip Banerjee went to Singur today to assess the mood of the people immediately after Tata’s pullout announcement. The committee’s Singur chief, Becharam Manna, came to Mamata tonight.

“The mood was sombre in some places of Singur. The CPM will organise a rally in Singur tomorrow. But we shall not sit idle,” Pradip said from Singur.

Asked if the Tata decision will put a spanner in the committee’s anti-land acquisition agitation in places like Katwa, Pradip said: “We will have to take a cautious stand henceforth.”

It is clear that Mamata will have to think twice before launching her future anti-acquisition programmes — which she has vowed to do anywhere in Bengal where the government is planning to take over land for a project.

“We are going to lose our traditional support in the cities following Tata’s pullout. After all, urban people, particularly the younger generation, are in favour of industry,” said a Trinamul MLA from south Calcutta.

He was, however, confident that Trinamul would fare well in the forthcoming byelections to Sujapur in Malda, Para in Purulia and Nandigram in East Midnapore.

“People in rural Bengal still believe that the CPM is out to grab their agricultural land. And this feeling among the rural populace would help us reap political benefit in bypolls,” said a Trinamul general secretary.

Two days after changing its stand and imposing a killer condition — relocate ancillaries — on the Nano project, many in the Congress admitted that the Tata pullout would also be a blow to the party.

A state Congress leader said: “At the last moment, we took a U-turn on Singur and joined forces with Mamata. This was not fair on our part.”

Another leader said the party would find it difficult to portray itself as pro-industry after the decision to back Mamata on Singur.