Ironically, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjeeisup againstexactly the kind ofunrestrained mass power thatblew away ruling partiesoff their high perchin the past. The agitations at Singur and Nandigram in 2007-08, whichrewrote the state’s political narrative, areonly one example.

Despite certain surface similarities with Singur-Nandigram incidents, it is too early to say whether what has been happening in South 24 Parganas will prove to be of lasting political significance. But within 72 hours of incidents at Bhangar and Bishnupur, the TMC-ruled Bengalgovernment has beaten an ignominious administrativeretreat. The Statepoliceproved pathetically incapable indealingwith armed, angry mobs and left Bhangar after 48 hours under cover of darkness.

In other words the TMC governmenthas behaved in the same cowardly manner of the CPI(M)-led Left Front(LF) government which lostthe2011 Assembly polls. The LF hadabdicated its dutiesand recalledthe state police from many thanas and areas in Midnapore and other areas, asMaoists succeeded in achieving their area domination programmes.The Maoistshad allowed the emerging TMC party supporters a free run of the areaand the rest is history, as the saying goes.

At bottom whatinitially sparked and later fuelled, the suddeneruption of violence at Bhangar is the TMC’s rigid stand on land acquisition: the government will not allow the displacement of a single person, nor disallow/removeillegalencroachment, from any plot of land without mutually agreed compensation.

The outcome:a total lack of fresh investments in Bengal and theflourishingof a politically-backed land mafia that goeson an all-out encroachment spree, grabbingall vacant plots in towns, along highways, even along theriver banks. But it ensures thousands of votes for illegal settlers (including people from Bangladesh and other states) and their kin.

Post Nandigram, Ms Banerjee made this policy an article of faith for her administration.The erstwhile CPI(M)-led Left Front government tried to set up industries at Nandigram after paying landlosers compensation. But all parties opposed industries from coming up on agricultural land. The LF government was defeated in the polls.

The TMC governmentreapedrich political dividend fromits ultra-left land policy. It never admitted that its too-rigid applicationof its acquisitionpolicy would put an end to the state’s industrialisation. Between 2011 and 2016, Bengalattracted only Rs 300 crore of new industrial investment in one year, a rock –bottom figure. The same year, even Assam securedover Rs 1000 crores of industrial investment.

At Bhangar, the state government was not trying to set up industries. It was simply putting up a substation and layingsome high tension wire, to improvethe availability and quality of power inparts of south 24 Parganas. The work was entrusted to the PowerGrid Corporation of India, which had carried out similar work in other areas andcompleted about 90 per cent of the work at Bhangar.

Influential TMC leader Mr Arabul Islam and his supporters associated themselves with PowerGrid’s efforts in taking over land from the cultivators andpaying compensation. There were some local rumbling over this as peoplecomplained that they had not been paid in full. There Arabul‘s men had taken a cut. But in view of Arabul’s high connections, nobody could do very much.

After the TMC decided to accept former CPI(M) Minister Abdur Rezak Molla and gave him a ticket for Bhangar Assembly seat in 2016, overruling protests from Arabul, the trouble began. Winning the seat, Rezzak, with his known antipathy for Arabul, mobilised his opponents, who renewed their demands to be paid full compensation.The future of the project looked uncertain. It seemed Arabul’s men had violated the basic principle on acquisitionthat his own party and its supreme leader, Ms Banerjee,had sworn to uphold.

“It seems in their mutual hatred for each other, TMC leaderscan go to any length, even try to put the clock back. Rezzak himself went on record campaigningthat if high tension wires passed overcultivated areas, production would suffer andthequality ofcropswould decline. Even women would find itdifficult, he said,to give normal birth to their offspring – yes, all this in 2016-17, when the world iscarrying out for more energy production,” says Shounak Mukherjee, IT Executive who lives at Bhangar.

As pro-Rezzak elements now ganged up against Arabul and his men, both groups heavily armed, the administration took no action. Then, pro-Rezzak men organized roadblock, cutting off five villages in Bhangar from three directions. They dumped trees and stones on the roadsand put up barricades. Schools and officesclosed down as nobody was allowed to move in or out. Police vehicles were not allowed toenter the villages.

When the police tried to enter the villages and restore normalcy, stone pelting andclashes broke out. Tear gas was used and shots were fired. At least two youths died andfive morewere injured.

Intriguingly, no one knew who started the firing. The police denied firing, and blamed ‘Naxalite outsiders’. It was reported that some 40/50 students of Jadavpore University had assisted protestors against the PowerGrid substation.

In retaliation the crowd overturned andset on fire some 40 police vehicles. The police, now ordered by their Chief Minister not to fire, stood and watched. The Government, in its hurry to appease the armed mobs, announced that no power station/substation would be built in the area.

The Chief Minister held a meeting in Kolkata and ordered the police to bring the culprits to book and find out who had instigated the mobs and opened fire.

Interestingly, both Arabul and Rezzak know deny any involvement with either of the groups. Arabul maintains strongly that neither he nor his men were involved in any wrong doing when it came to payment of compensations. Rezzak claims he had been misquoted by the press in his remarks about problems of pregnant women during delivery, if high tension wires were laid over their houses. (IPA Service)