Mamata Banerjee kept scribbling on a sheaf of loose papers on the dharna dais through Tuesday. An aide said: “She was doing what journalists call hard reporting, penning all that happened through the day.” Picture by Pradip Sanyal

Calcutta/Singur, Aug. 26: Not happy paralysing several highways, Mamata Banerjee today announced plans to block roads across Bengal on Friday.

From her siege dais in Singur, the Trinamul Congress leader said: “We will put up road blocks across the state for two hours from 3pm on Friday. This is our way of protesting against the government’s refusal to return 400 acres to farmers.”

She added: “The entire state should know what sort of suffering the unwilling farmers of Singur are being put through by the state government.”

The Trinamul Chhatra Parishad will celebrate its foundation day in Singur, instead of the Maidan in Calcutta, on Thursday. “Students will pour in to strengthen our (Singur) movement,” Mamata thundered this afternoon.

The Trinamul leaders said the state government’s “consistent refusal’’ to offer any sort of concession to the unwilling farmers had forced them to continue with the movement.

“After yesterday’s letter from the chief minister, we were waiting for the government to act today by saying that it was agreeable to giving back at least a small portion of the unwilling farmers’ land. But there was no sign of the government softening its stand,” said Purnendu Bose, a leader of the Trinamul-backed Save Farmland Committee.

Mamata, Bose said, “was forced to step up the agitation” with Friday’s rasta roko. “We had no option but to pile pressure on Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee.”

A Trinamul leader said Mamata held a brief meeting with her aides on the dharna dais this afternoon on how to step up the agitation.

“Didi said the movement had to be spread across the state steadily. She also said that her 26-day fast in Calcutta on Singur had generated mass concern as the party had organised public meetings across the state,” said a Trinamul general secretary known to be close to the party chief.

According to Trinamul Rajya Sabha MP Mukul Roy, the onus lies on the government to come up with a solution. “Doesn’t the government know about our demand for return of land? But it is silent on this aspect and is trying to bring us to the discussion table without any agenda. Mamatadi has told us that she cannot sacrifice the interest of poor farmers by joining talks with the government when there’s nothing specific on the agenda,” Roy said.