Villagers are protesting the setting up a gas insulated power substation at Bhangar.
Thousands of villagers are protesting the setting up a gas insulated power substation at Bhangar, about 40 kilometres from Kolkata. They claim land for the project - all of 16 acres of agricultural land - was seized at gunpoint two years ago.
"Trinamool people seized the land... led by Arabul, a local party strongman," said the head of the Save Rajarhat Land Committee, Mr Oli Mohammad Malik.
This is a complete reversal of Trinamool chief Mamata Banerjee's policy of no forcible acquisition of agricultural land, a cause she had championed at Singur and Nandigram and swept to power in 2011 in West Bengal.
Angry villagers also claimed the substation, the power transmission towers and high tension power lines in the area were a health risk, would damage the environment and the land. And no one had told them about that.
On Wednesday morning, as villagers blocked the road in front of the power substation built by the Power Grid Corporation of India, a huge police force was rushed to the area, along with water cannons and riot control vehicles.
Several hours after the protest began, the villagers were called for a meeting at the end of which the road block was lifted after the district administration promised to look into the matter next week, after the end of the Makar Sankranti festival.
Some sources claimed some outsiders were fanning the villagers' anger. Pradeep Singha, one such outsider who was present during the protests, said he was from the CPI-ML Red Star party and only assisting the villagers in their rightful protest.
"The outsider charge is an old CPM ploy. They had used it in Nandigram and Singur. Not Trinamool is speaking in the discredited language of the CPM," he said.
Asked if Bhangar was turning into a mini-Singur, Pradeep Singha said, "No mini-Singur, it will turn into a mega-Singur and disrupt the state's politics."
The local Trinamool legislator, Rezzak Mollah, had visited the Gazipur village at Bhangar last week and said the project was not going anywhere so people had better get used to it.
But Congress's Sheikh Nizamuddin who lives in the area said, "We will not allow the power grid to function here. Let them build it in their own neighbourhood, not ours."