He advised the party men at Singur to personally meet those “unwilling farmers” and persuade them to accept the offer for their own interests. Today’s meeting, in which all the Left Front partners were present, was organised for mobilising public opinion in support of the Tatas Nano car project.

Mamata Banerjee and 20 other parties, fighting for the farmers whose farmlands have been acquired at Singur for the Tata project, will organise a counter-rally tomorrow at Singur. Mamata alleged that the CPM had sold themselves to the Tatas and both Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and Ratan Tata had now decided to crush the very existence of the poor farmers in the name of industrialisation.

The government yesterday announced its “new package”, stating that only the 70 acres (and not 300 acres as demanded) from inside the Tata Motors project could be returned to the unwilling farmers, who would be paid at the rate of Rs 12 lakh per acre as the price of the land. The package includes an economic rehabilitation scheme. Tata Motors officially welcomed the new package and hoped a long-term peaceful situation to prevail at Singur for their smooth running of the plant.