Industrialists will be hoping for a reversal of policies in West Bengal

NEW DELHI: With Mamata Banerjee coming to power in West Bengal, industrialists in the state and elsewhere will be hoping for a reversal of policies that has made the state, once a vibrant industrial hub, a wasteland of capitalism.

Trinamool’s advisors are planning to invite every major industrialist in the country, including Tata Group chairman Ratan Tata, to the swearing-in ceremony of Banerjee, who will go down in history as the person who almost single-handedly dislodged the longest Communist government in the world.

Banerjee has shown little by way of track record to gauge that she will run an industry-friendly government. After all, she fought tooth and nail against the Tata Nano factory that was coming up in Singur and Indonesia’s Salim group’s proposed chemical hub in Nandigram. But things will be different now. One of the biggest components of the massive anti-Left Front sentiment that swept the state and brought her to power is the utter lack of industrial development and the consequent lack of employment opportunities. Trinamool Congress will have to work to remedy the situation and attract capital flow.

Banerjee has maintained that she is pro-farmer, but not anti-industry. The message is that she opposed projects in Nandigram and Singur because the state was taking away land from the farmer to hand over to large industrial groups.
She is yet to express a coherent alternate policy paradigm, however. As Cabinet minister of the Union, she was the chief dissenter to the Land Acquisitions Bill. Now with her moving to run the state with her own compulsions to facilitate large industrial projects, her militant stand against land acquisition might undergo a change.

Another factor that will give industry hope about doing business in West Bengal will be the persuasion of some of her close advisors like former Ficci chairman Amit Mitra and economist Bibek Debroy.

Banerjee will need friends in the industry as she runs the government.

She and the party has been backed by the old business families of Kolkata, most of who do business outside. In effect, more money has flowed from Mumbai to finance Banerjee’s campaign than from Bengal.