Mamata’s supporters hide under a shrub in the face of the police action in Singur. Picture by Pradip Sanyal

Calcutta, Sept. 26: A sobbing Mamata Banerjee called off her sit-in and hunger strike, which shifted venue from Singur to the city past midnight yesterday, following cellphone conversations with Congress leaders in Delhi and an emotional tête-à-tête with former party colleague Priya Ranjan Das Munshi.

“I withdrew today’s dharna after Union home minister Shivraj Patil’s assurance that he would have the matter looked into,” Mamata said before leaving the Gandhi statue on Mayo Road under which she had been squatting since being bodily lifted out of Singur by police.

Police and RAF swooped on the Singur block development office late last night to break a siege laid by Mamata’s supporters.

The Trinamul Congress is now bracing for a joint rally with its parent party in Calcutta tomorrow to protest against the notification for land acquisition in Singur. Mamata has called a Bengal bandh on October 9, which the Congress has supported.

“Priyada, too, requested me to withdraw the dharna and agreed to a Trinamul-Congress rally in the city tomorrow,” Mamata said.

Around 12.30 this morning, police lined up on the corridor leading to Singur BDO Abhijit Mukherjee’s office.

“Why have they come here? We’ll not budge an inch,” Mamata said.

An hour later, she was lifted and taken out with party MLAs Partha Chatterjee and Sonali Guha and other leaders. A woman constable held Mamata by the hair as she tried to resist the police from packing her into a jeep.

Trinamul sources said Sonia Gandhi has been kept posted on the “torture inflicted on Mamata”.

Her party will also submit a report to the Union home minister. Tears welling up, Mamata told Das Munshi: “I should no longer be in politics here… it is better for me to leave this state. I have been heckled and assaulted. Is this democracy?”

Her supporters blocked railway tracks and roads for an hour from 11 am to protest against land acquisition. It threw traffic out of gear in the city and stalled trains.

Many, like Laboni Das, a Salt Lake resident trying to reach Medical College and Hospital with her one-and-a-half-year-old son to see a paediatrician, were stuck on the road.

Congress general secretary Margaret Alva wanted to speak to Mamata but she gave the phone to Das Munshi, who narrated the incident.

The Union minister rushed from Delhi to Calcutta this morning. “The most disturb-ing fact is that a woman had been physically assaulted in the dead of night and driven out,” he said.