KOLKATA: An opposition leader in eastern India on a protest fast for 24 days against a car project was given oxygen as her condition worsened, her party said on Wednesday. The outspoken Mamata Banerjee, who heads the opposition Trinamool Party in the communist-ruled West Bengal state, has been fasting in protest against the government’s move to sell farmland to Indian auto giant Tata Motors for a factory.

“She is having a constant breathing trouble. Her blood pressure is fluctuating. On Tuesday, she had to be given oxygen,” party spokesman Saugata Roy said.

A government medical team sent to treat her was sent away on Tuesday from the makeshift structure made of bamboo and wooden planks in the heart of the city, where she is staging the protest.

Banerjee has also turned down requests by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and West Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee to call off the strike and meet for talks.

Her supporters said Bannerjee would continue her fast-- a protest weapon popularised by Mahatama Gandhi in his fight against British colonial rule-- until the land for the car project was returned to farmers.

Activists and landowners say that the government has acquired prime fertile land for the $220 million plant in Singur, 40 kilometers north of state capital Kolkata, where production is slated to begin in 2007.

Similar protests have dogged plans for big plants in other parts of the country, including separate projects by steelmaker Arcelor Mittal and South Korean steel giant POSCO, both in the eastern state of Orissa.

But Tata Motors said it would not pull out.

“We didn’t go to West Bengal to pull up and go.... If I believe we are doing something wrong, I will be the first one to pull out,” Tata group chief Ratan Tata told private television network NDTV in an interview.

The state’s communist government has also said it will not ask the Tata empire to scrap the project.

The communists -- allies of the federal government and in the past staunch critics of the opening of the economy -- have been increasingly wooing domestic and foreign investors to increase industrial growth in West Bengal.—AFP