Kept my promise of returning land at Singur says Mamata

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday (January 28, 2026) addressed a public meeting at Singur in Hooghly district and said that unlike many she had kept her promise of returning land to the people of the area.

The public meeting by the Chief Minister comes nine days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed a public meeting at Singur. “I was ready to die for Singur. I promised that land would be returned to farmers, and I kept my promise. What have you done? Nothing. Except for lecturing, you have done nothing. Have you ever laid a brick here,” Ms. Banerjee said.

Singur has been synonymous with the struggle against forcible land acquisition that brought Mamata Banerjee to power in the State in 2011. Singur, is also looked upon as the site where the dreams of industrialisation of West Bengal met a dead end after Tata Motors decided to shift the small car factory out of the State.

During his address, the Prime Minister had touched on how Trinamool Congress’ syndicate tax and deteriorating law and order situation was not conducive to setting up industries in the State. But much to the disappointment of the people who had come to his public meeting, Mr. Modi did not make any announcement of investments at Singur.

The Chief Minister on the other hand announced development projects in the vicinity of the abandoned Tata Motors small car factory site and claimed that these initiatives will generate employment for thousands of local youths.

“We have built an agro-industrial park over eight acres of land in Singur. We have commissioned a private industrial park where Amazon and Flipkart will set up warehouses and generate employment for thousands of people in Singur,” she said.

Ms. Banerjee said that both agriculture and industry will thrive in Singur. Several farmers who have got their land returned after the Supreme Court had set aside the land acquisition say that the land is no longer suitable for cultivation.

The Chief Minister said that she would not allow the BJP to enter Bengal and came down heavily on the Union government for the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR). Ms. Banerjee claimed that ECI wants to delete names of two crore voters and influence the outcome of the Assembly polls.

“You are deleting the names of legitimate voters in the guise of SIR. Don’t you have faith in the people? Will the ECI, by removing two crore names, decide who will be able to vote? Or will the people decide who will come to power through their votes? This is democracy, not autocracy. I want to warn the autocrats,” she said.

The Chief Minister was expected to visit New Delhi where she was expected to meet the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar in the next few days. Ms. Banerjee, however said that she had cancelled her plans due to the demise of Deputy Chief Minister of Maharashtra Ajit Pawar in an aircraft crash.