Will find peace only after land returned to unwilling farmers

A day after stating that it was a 'moral victory' with the Supreme Court asking Tata Motors to make its stand clear on leasehold rights on the Singur land, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee today said she would find peace only after it was returned to unwilling farmers.
"I will find peace only when my aspirations are fulfilled by returning land to the (unwilling) farmers in Singur," Banerjee told a panchayat election rally here in Hooghly district.
Stating that the Trinamool Congress government would never acquire land at Singur, the Trinamool Congress chief said "I feel pain when someone's land is taken away forcibly and he is reduced to a beggar."

Recalling her 15-day dharna in August-September, 2008 outside the Tata Motors plant in Singur demanding that the then state government return 400 acre to unwilling farmers, Banerjee said she had to undergo a lot of sacrifice.
"I had to face mosquito bites and the smell from a drain for days," she said.
Reminding that she had fasted for 26 days on the Singur issue in Kolkata, she said that the Singur and Nandigram land movements would continue to remain a model for the country against forcible acquisition of land.

Banerjee, who was catapulted to power by the Singur land agitation, had announced in 2011 to return 400 acre to farmers who unwillingly gave up their land.

The TMC government had subsequently passed the Singur Land and Rehabilitation Act, 2011 to this effect.
The state government had moved the Supreme Court against a Calcutta high court order which had struck down the act that allowed the state government to reclaim the 400 acre of land given to Tata Motors.