MINING A CONTROVERSY
The Deocha Pachami coal mining project, involving land acquisition of thousands of acres, including a wide expanse of forests and 12 Adivasi villages, will be West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s biggest challenge yet. No one in the state has forgotten that 14 years ago, Mamata had been on the other side of the fence, spearheading the agitation against the Left Front government’s land acquisition policy in Singur, which led to the Tatas migrating an iconic car project to Gujarat, and Bengal earning the dubious reputation of being hostile to industry in the bargain. The public blowback from the row contributed in no small measure to the ouster of the CPI(M)-led Left Front government and Mamata’s rise to power in 2011.
A decade later, the Trinamool Congress chief herself is
