Singur, Oct. 5: Trinamul Congress leaders are celebrating a “people’s victory” but many among the “people” have suddenly realised they may have lost.

Their land and their money, both.

Till two days ago, unwilling landlosers Lal Mohan Mal and Kamala Ghosh had clung to a two-year-old conviction about impending triumph, visiting Mamata Banerjee’s podium regularly during the siege. But with their leaders’ disappearance from Singur after Ratan Tata’s pullout announcement, reality has sunk in.

Today Mal, 70, who had refused to collect his compensation cheque for Rs 9 lakh (to which another Rs 4.5 lakh would have been added under the new rehab package), rued: “We haven’t taken the money, nor are we getting back our land. What will happen to us?”

Mal, who had been a CPM supporter, had joined Mamata’s movement to save his three bighas in Gopalnagar, which brought him Rs 30,000-40,000 a year.

“Had I taken the cheque like the others, we could have earned some interest. Now we have nothing,” he said, pointing to his plot where an office-cum-warehouse has come up.

“I regret not accepting the package,” said Kamala, 69, of Bajemelia, a lifelong Trinamul supporter. “I don’t belong to any political party any more; I want a secure future for my four jobless sons and I can go to both Mamata Banerjee and Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee to seek help.”

The fears of Mal and Kamala may not be unfounded: industries minister Nirupam Sen today reaffirmed that the law didn’t allow the government to return the land.

He added that the unclaimed cheques — which the government was begging the farmers to accept till the other day — would now be in custody of the courts where the acquisition is being fought.

Mamata has vowed to resume the agitation to get the land back, but even those among the “unwilling” who are still gung-ho about the Tata pullout are asking questions their leaders aren’t around to answer.

One question is: “Shall we really get back our land and, if so, when?”

A second is: “Will it retain its fertile character with so much filling, levelling and construction having taken place?”

The big leaders — Mamata, social activist Anuradha Talwar and Save Farmland Committee leader Purnendu Bose — no longer visit Singur, so the farmers are looking for some reassurance from the local leaders.

But committee convener Becharam Manna and MLA Rabindranath Bhattacharya are no longer visible, Singur residents say.

“They would visit our village every night and spend hours persuading us not to accept the cheques. But they haven’t turned up even once after Tata announced the pullout. Where are they now?” asked Sanath Ghosh of Bajemelia.

This afternoon, The Telegraph visited Manna’s Ratanpur home where his mother Bimala said he hadn’t returned since last night.

“Don’t ask unnecessary questions; I’m busy at meetings. We’re trying our best to get the farmers back their land,” Manna told this correspondent over the phone before ending the call.

Bhattacharya denied he was avoiding his constituency. “I’m busy with meetings and that’s why people don’t see me.”

Did he have an answer to the farmers’ questions? The MLA merely repeated what Mamata had said: a fresh agitation for return of the land would start after the pujas.

“We are losing hope with each passing day. How can they leave us in the lurch like this?” said Sailendranath Karar, 80, whose 2.7 bighas would be worth Rs 12 lakh in compensation. The money would have paid for his medical treatment and helped secure the future of his three grandchildren.

“We are close to starving. We can’t buy enough food for the 11 of us,” he said.