On any other day, the swanky Durgapur Express Highway is a picture of calm efficiency, with trucks rumbling down this four-lane expressway which connects West Bengal with India's main arteries. It's rare, say the locals, to see a car on the 4.5-km-long stretch that outlines Tata Motors' Nano facility, nestled amidst lush, green fields at Singur, some 40-45 km off Calcutta. Not so on August 24. On this hot Sunday afternoon, the stretch of highway here resembles a war zone. Trinamool Congress (tmc) chief Mamata Banerjee is pitched in an emotive battle over land rights around the Tata facility. Some 25,000 people have flowed into the protest area from all parts of the district and beyond; 21 protest podiums have been set up on the highway along the boundary walls of the factory; around 5,000 police persons, backed by water cannons and riot police vans, stand guard; and 4,000-odd workers at the Tata plant have been asked to stay within their hutments dotting the periphery of the plant. Business is fighting politics in Battleground Singur, with protagonists on both sides digging their heels in, neither willing to cede an inch. A combative Ratan Tata has brought things to a head, by threatening to move out of West Bengal, bags, Nano and all. For once, industry too has thrown its weight behind him, with even a reticent Mukesh Ambani coming out with a statement on August 27 supporting Tata, and representatives of powerful lobby groups like en's Tarun Das (who has been to Singur recently) and Fiqci's Amit Mitra along with a host of industry bodies helping him turn the screws on the West Bengal government to come up with a solution. The Centre, meanwhile, has washed its hands of the matter, saying it "now doesn't see any room to plead with the Left in this matter". Standing her ground equally firmly on the other side is Mamatadi, determined to wring out all the political capital caught up in this land rights issue. She has no dearth of support either. Sharing the dais with her this Sunday are Sam-ajwadi Party leader Amar Singh, even her long-time adversary and former Congress leader in the state, Somen Mitra, apart from other leaders from smaller parties and outfits like the cpi(ml) and suci. Medha Patkar is here too, lending her name to the cause. Apparently Arundhati Roy was invited too, but she hasn't showed up. Mamata has been demanding the return of400 acres of farmland for almost two years now, land that she says the state government acquired from farmers unwilling to part with it. Tata Motors were given 997 acres of land in all, 600 acres of it for the Nano factory, and the remaining for a vendor park-where component manufacturers and accessory suppliers would set up their facilities. This 400 acres, say local leaders and Singur farmers, formed one of the most fertile stretches of agricultural land in the region, yielding between three and four crops a year. The West Bengal government, of course, doesn't have much room for manoeuvre. If the Tatas choose to exit, the state will practically wave goodbye to industry. At the same time, the cpi(m) cannot ignore the farmer lobby either, where support in recent times has been showing signs of wear and tear. So, how do you resolve the deadlock? The answer may well lie with Mamatadi. At the rally on August 24, she had stressed, "I am not against industrial development in the state. But it cannot happen at the cost of farmers. We want the 400 acres belonging to unwilling farmers to be returned and the vendors settled somewhere else." Making this alternative public for the first time at the August 24 meeting, Mamata suggested that the vendor park be shifted to a 500-acre stretch just a few kilometres away from the current location. Tata, however, is not buying that, citing costs and logistical problems. His deadline for delivering the world's cheapest car