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Rabi Banerjee
Rabi Banerjee

INVESTMENT

Mamata’s meeting with Ambani sparks questions and speculations

PTI1_9_2016_000125B [File] West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee | PTI

Mamata Banerjee is the first chief minister of West Bengal to have visited a big industrialist’s house to, what she said, invite him to attend the business submit of the state.

Let alone just meeting Mukesh Ambani, she also asked a media shy Ambani to come out of his home and pose for a photograph for the waiting newsmen outside his luxurious mansion in Mumbai. Nita, Mukesh’s wife, is on a tour in the US for her birthday celebration. Ambanis did not spoil it for Mamata’s appointment, but Mukesh only delayed his journey by a couple of hours. 

Interestingly, Mamata also did the same for what she had held her two predecessors guilty for hobnobbing with industrialists. 

Both Jyoti Basu and Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, two communist chief ministers of Bengal, had held series of meetings with prime industrialists of India. However, none of them visited their houses.

Basu had cordial relations with JRD Tata, Rusy Modi, Biren J Shah, Birlas and Goenkas. He always kept an association around him that matched his wave length.

Some of them used to attend his official residence in Kolkata for dinner or chat. But never ever he accepted their request to meet them at their swanky villas or mansions. 

Buddhadeb, on the other hand, was not as much nearer to business honchos as Basu. He held series of meetings with Ratan Tata, Mukesh Ambani and Sajjan Jindal at his office in Writers’ buildings. He never invited anyone at his small flat in Kolkata’s Palm Avenue. In fact, an ailing Buddhadeb is still find uneasy if more than a couple of senior leaders visit him at one time.

When she was grown as a fiery leader of Bengal, Mamata used to use this as a sharp weapons against the communist duo. She tagged Basu as an anti-communist who meets industrialists to make future of his “over-hyped” son. As the opposition leader, Mamata had also said that she would not like to follow the footsteps of Basu or Buddhadeb if she came to power.

Life came to a full circle for Mamata when she stepped into the Antilia, the house of Ambani and the world’s most expensive residence after Buckingham Palace. It has around 600 staffers to manage 27 floors. 

Mamata spent around one and a half hour inside the building and discussed lot of issues with Ambani. Two of her ministers, Indranil Sen and Arup Biswas, who accompanied her in her tour to Mumbai, went inside the house but stayed in a separate chamber for sometimes when Mamata was having one to one discussion with Ambani.

“Didi put up an excellent picture of West Bengal and asked Ambani to invest in the state. He had come for last year’s business meet, but did not make any investment after that. So the attempt of the chief minister was to woo his capital for Bengal,” said a member of her cabinet.

West Bengal is lagging behind in industrialisation in last one year with no virtual big investment, since last Global Business Submit in the state. Ambani and others attended the submit and West Bengal government had said that an expression of interest of Rs 2 lakh crore had been received by the government. No promise came for the fresh investment in heavy industrial sector except some marginal increase of the existing operations.

“I think it’s a positive step to be undertaken. At least some attempt is being made to woo big investors at the end. I think that should be appreciated,” said Pradip Bhattacharya.

However, the buzz in the Bengal’s political circle about the meeting is that Mamata is trying to befriend one of Narendra Modi’s closest friends. Ambani’s rapport with Modi is well known and it carries a lot of strength in the political class in Delhi.

Will the meeting be seen as a successful attempt on the part of a maverick politician of Bengal who poses as a biggest political enemy of India’s prime minister? Time alone can say that.

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