Nandigram: Twelve years after the anti-land acquisition movement changed the political landscape of West Bengal when the three-decade-long Left rule ended and the TMC came to power, many locals in the cradle of change, Nandigram, feel “disenchanted and forgotten” and are yearning for another change. Nandigram in East Midnapore district along with Singur in Hoogly district, were considered to be two pillars which laid the foundation of the TMC government led by Mamata Banerjee in 2011.
But now, many people here not only feel disenchanted but also betrayed as they count on the losses of the violent anti-land acquisition. Nandigram falls under Tamluk Lok Sabha constituency and will go to polls on May 12. The bloody agitation over land acquisition for a 14,000-acre chemical hub project by Indonesia’s Salim Group which started in January 2007 led to the death of 14 people in police firing in March during the then Left Front government’s rule. Riding on anti-land acquisition protests, the TMC dislodged the 34-year-old Left Front government from Bengal in 2011.
But eight years down the line, social disparity, development and fortune for a “selected few” have not only angered the locals but also forced some to think of an alternative. “What did we get out of the anti-land acquisition movement? We were used as pawns in TMC’s political fight. We still live in abject poverty. Had there been an industry, we would have got jobs,” says Haripada Mondal, a sharecropper who was part of the Bhumi Ucched Pratirodh Committee (BUPC).
