Kolkata, Mar 14 (PTI) West Bengal’s ruling Trinamool Congress and opposition BJP on Friday organised separate events at Sonachura in Purba Medinipur district to pay tributes to 14 farmers who were killed in police firing on March 14, 2007, during an anti-land acquisition movement in Nandigram.
Leader of Opposition and BJP MLA from Nandigram, Suvendu Adhikari, went to the memorial built in tribute to the martyred farmers.
“I hereby pay tribute to the 14 farmers who fell to the bullets of the police on this day to protect their land from being taken over by land sharks and tycoons,” Adhikari said.
“TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee should not claim credit for the Nandigram movement. It was the movement of the people; it was the Bhumi Uchhed Pratirodh Committee (BUPC) which united the people. Banerjee would not have become chief minister had Nandigram not happened,” he added.
Adhikari, once a trusted aide of Banerjee and now her arch-rival and political foe, said he knew Banerjee only reaped dividends from the anti-land agitation.
TMC leader and BUPC functionary Sk Sufiyan later held another programme at the same venue.
A group of TMC activists, led by Sufiyan, reached the area and washed the spot in a symbolic ‘purification’ move and removed the black flags put up on the poles at the venue.
“The Nandigram movement does not belong to Suvendu Adhikari, and Mamata Banerjee was considered the undisputed leader of the farmers, cutting across Nandigram and Singur,” Sufiyan said.
He accused the Nandigram police and administration of doing favours to Adhikari and the BJP by allotting them extended time, running beyond one hour at the memorial and thus taking away the allotted time for TMC activists and BUPC members.
On Friday, CM Mamata Banerjee paid tribute to the martyr farmers in a post on X and affirmed her solidarity with the kin of the 14 deceased farmers of the Bhumi Uchhed Pratirodh Committee (anti-land acquisition movement), who fell to bullets on this day years back. PTI SUS MNB
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