BJP national vice president Mukul Roy on Sunday claimed that though West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had promised jobs to the youth of Singur, which is synonymous with her anti-land acquisition movement, she has not done anything for them. Tata Motors had built a factory for the world’s cheapest car, Nano, at Singur in Hooghly district, but the project was abandoned and shifted to Gujarat following a massive agitation by the farmers, led by Banerjee and her party, the Trinamool Congress, in 2006-2007.
Admitting that he had also taken part in the 2006 Singur movement during his Trinamool Congress days, Roy, who was once Banerjee’s right-hand man and had joined the saffron party in 2017, told a press conference here that driving away the Nano manufacturing plant out of West Bengal was the biggest blunder and this acted as a deterrent for other industrialists too. The project was moved to the western state on the invitation of the then chief minister Narendra Modi.
The anti-land acquisition movement at Singur and Nandigram had catapulted Banerjee and her TMC to power in the state in 2011, ending a 34-year-long Left regime.
Roy also highlighted the state government’s alleged failure in attracting investments into the state despite hosting several global business summits.
“The chief Minister held several global investment summits over the last nine years, but no investment has come to the state for setting up industries, while those who have units in the state, are being compelled to move base owing to syndicate raj,” Roy told reporters here.
He dared Banerjee to release a white paper giving details of the amount spent in organising the business conclaves and the investments made in the state during these nine years.
Unveiling a job opportunities assurance card for the youth of the state, Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM) state president and Bishnupur MP Soumitra Khan said, instead of providing employment to people, the chief minister is asking young men and women to sell chops and fries for a living.
“We will provide job avenues to the youth,” he said.
The BJYM will register the names of young persons for the purpose which, Khan said, will also provide an idea about the number of jobless men and women in the state.
Khan claimed that at present, bomb making is the only industry in the state.
Asserting that the saffron party will win the 2021 elections, he said that the BJYM will distribute cards to 75 lakh youths in the state for providing job opportunities in the next five years.
