Click to play videoKolkata: At the cost of 14 lives, the people of Nandigram have finally bought freedom. Though he had always maintained that the proposed SEZ in Nandigram could be relocated if people didn't want it, this is the first time Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee announced it had been formally scrapped.
"I had said before we wouldn't go to Nandigram if people didn't want the SEZ there, but now we have formally decided, we won't go to Nandigram at all. We don't want bloodshed for industrialisation and I take full responsibility for mistakes committed by the government there," he said.
However, Buddha is not sacrificing the chemical hub that was proposed to be built there. The Chief Minister promised the SEZ would be relocated within seven days of obtaining the Centre's approval.
Though the move could cost the state a great deal of credibility with potential investors, the Chief Minister had to yield to pressure from within his party and its allies. The Opposition, however, isn't convinced yet.
Says Trinamool Congress MLA, Sougata Ray, "The Trinamool Congress does not believe in Buddhadeb Bhattacharya's words because he said many things in the past and gone back on his words. The question that needs to be answered right now is why so many people were killed on March 14."
With Wednesday's announcement the Chief Minister seems to have set in motion the process of undoing the wrong done in Nandigram, but relocating the SEZ won't be easy as the people of Bengal have united under the Trinamool Congress banner to protect farmland, and acquiring 12,000 acres would be difficult anywhere in the state.
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