Unlike most of West Bengal, Hooghly district, where the Singur block is located, has never been a stronghold of the Left parties. Even before the Singur crisis, the ruling Communists had been kicked out of several panchayats in the Singur block. It got worse for the Left Front last November when the Trinamool Congress won all 16 panchayats in the gram panchayat elections in the wake of the agitation over the Tata Nano plant. Why unpaid plots can