Singur: Singur swings between hope and despair as the Supreme Court's stay on re-distribution of plots and its long-term implications trickled down to farmers, who have been fighting for their land for the last five years.
Dudh Kumar Dhara, the chief of Beraberi gram panchayat who is also a member of the 19-member committee set up to facilitate the land return, said: "There is a sense of being lost in the quagmire of legality and a fear that we may not get back what we have been fighting for so long."
The queue of farmers in front of the block development office has thinned down as people realise that even though the bureaucratic process of returning land to unwilling farmers may be on but the actual day of getting back their land is still a distant dream.
Pulak Sarkar, the block development officer of Singur, told Gulf News: "There is a visible fall in the enthusiasm of the people, and the number of submissions has reduced drastically. Even fewer forms were submitted on Saturday. On Friday, we had received more than 100 forms. Altogether, 1,590 forms have been submitted since last week."
Though politically, the ruling Trinamool Congress party is trying to keep the mood upbeat, as they are aware that Singur was key to its political success, any feeling of false hope may actually hurt them.
"People believe in what we promised them and they can see the effort that our leadership is putting in to keep the poll promise," said Becharam Manna, the Trinamool Congress's MLA from Haripal who had been in the forefront in protest against land accusation.
