Calcutta, Sept. 7: As soon as Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee stepped into the governor’s study at Raj Bhavan, Mamata Banerjee stood up shyly and folded her hands. A smile playing on her lips, she broke the ice: “Namaskar.”

Rarely had the most humdrum of Bengali greetings face sounded so dramatic — this was the first meeting ever between the Trinamul Congress chief and the “sworn enemy” she had promised to oust, or not do her hair.

The chief minister reciprocated warmly, also with a smile, before settling down for battle.

That was at 4.55pm. A little after 10.30, when the talks ended, Bhattacharjee was a picture of chivalry as he and Mamata followed governor Gopalkrishna Gandhi to Raj Bhavan’s Marble Hall to face the media.

“You get on the dais first,” the chief minister said, and she did.

Bhattacharjee, though, put business first after Gandhi, having addressed the media, asked the Trinamul chief if she would like to say something. Mamata was about to start speaking when the chief minister gently cut in.

“Please apni aage Singur jan. Lokera okhane apnar janney wait korchhe (Please go to Singur first, people are waiting for you there),” Bhattacharjee said. Mamata obliged again and made for her car.

During the talks, Bhattacharjee had several times told Mamata “apni aj ratei dharna tulun (call off your dharna tonight)”, a source said.

When the chief minister reached Raj Bhavan, he was ushered into the first-floor study by the governor’s aide-de-camp. Gandhi and Mamata were already there, sitting on single sofas near a large mahogany table, facing each other.

Retired judge Chittatosh Mookerjee, the room’s third occupant, sat on the left side of a bigger sofa and Bhattacharjee settled down next to him.

For the next hour and a half, as Gandhi mediated, at times sternly, and Mookerjee provided expert advice, the two politicians bargained hard.

Gandhi set off the discussion saying he had spoken at length with Mamata and explained to Bhattacharjee what she wanted.

For the preceding two hours, in another room on the same floor, Mamata and her team had placed their case before the governor and handed him documents to back the claim about the “forcibly acquired 400 acres”.

She had argued the Tatas shouldn’t have a say on the location of ancillary units since the vendors had dealt directly with the government while acquiring the land. The government, therefore, shouldn’t have a problem asking them to shift.

Bhattacharjee told Mamata the Tatas hadn’t been “unduly favoured” as she had alleged, and not an extra acre had been given to them.

At this point Mamata raised her voice, insisting the 400 acres must be returned before she would lift the dharna.

The governor firmly told her not to get excited. He turned to Bhattacharjee and asked him to ascertain how much land within the project area could be returned.

As the protagonists argued, steward Tulsi Prasad Yadav, who has been at Raj Bhavan for 31 years, served tea, coffee and Marie biscuits. Mamata had two cups of tea with sugar and some biscuits; Bhattacharjee sipped black coffee without sugar.

“This is the first time I’ve seen Mamata didi face to face,” Tulsi said. Bhattacharjee could have echoed him.

“We are surprised Didi agreed to meet Buddhababu,” a senior Trinamul official confessed. “She always portrayed him as a murderer and liar.”

Before the 2001 state polls, Mamata had accused the chief minister of having plotted the murder of hundreds of Trinamul supporters. During her West Midnapore campaign, she refused to spend the night at the circuit house because Bhattacharjee had stayed there a few days ago.

After that election, she banned party MLAs from visiting Writers’ Buildings for a period.

Mamata’s relations with Jyoti Basu, however, were never so bitter when he was chief minister. Although they never held a formal meeting, Mamata had sent Basu roses when he was admitted to a hospital and visited his home after his wife died.

In June last year, she called on Basu at Indira Bhavan to discuss Nandigram and Singur.

Still, Mamata had had a confrontation with Basu in 1992 when she took deaf-and-mute Dipali Basak, allegedly raped by a CPM worker, to the chief minister’s chamber at Writers’ without an appointment.

Basu would not meet her, so she sat in dharna in front of his office for over an hour. That dharna, unlike Singur’s, ended with her being lifted physically and taken out of Writers’.