Politics meets business

Industry responds to bonhomie between West Bengal and Centre

The just concluded Bengal Global Business Summit in Kolkata could not be more different from the one held precisely a year ago. That one was distinctly modest, with hardly any top industrialist attending; this one was marked by the presence of a formidable array. Reliance's Mukesh Ambani lavished praise on West Bengal as an "ideal investment destination" and said the event was a transformational moment in the history of the state, which had "exceeded [his] expectations". Niranjan Hiranandani, co-founder of the eponymous group, said his earlier apprehensions about doing business in the state had been proved unfounded. Sajjan Jindal of the JSW group, work on whose cement plant (a much truncated project compared to the earlier one for a steel plant) was inaugurated in the run-up to the summit, praised the West Bengal chief minister for asking local voters not to create trouble by asking for jobs, as the project would be scaled up slowly.

It is possible that the business leaders were responding in part to strong signals emanating from New Delhi. As many as four Union ministers were present at the summit's inauguration. Politics appears to have caught up with business in the state at last in a positive way, with the National Democratic Alliance seeking closer co-operation with the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress. The party's 12 members in the Rajya Sabha would help in passing key reform legislation in Parliament. Meanwhile, murmurs about a tie-up between the Congress and the Left before the state assembly elections later this year would have played into Ms Banerjee's calculations. The vote share of the main political parties in the last assembly elections in the state play on many minds: the Left Front, with a vote share of 40 per cent, and the Congress, with a vote share of 9 per cent, together won half the popular vote in the last assembly elections. If these two come together and do not lose votes, then the Trinamool Congress desperately needs a counter strategy. The 17 per cent vote share earned by the Bharatiya Janata Party in the 2014 general elections will begin to be a factor.

The fungibility of votes is crucial here. Vote shares do not remain static from election to election. In the 2014 parliamentary elections the Left Front's vote share had fallen to 29 per cent, and the BJP's rose to 17 per cent. Certainly, the current despondency in the Congress and among the Left Front parties is in sharp contrast to the optimism radiated by Ms Banerjee. Also, a big question mark will hang over the attitude of many Muslim voters who supported the Trinamool Congress last time if the latter is seen to have an understanding with the BJP. Therefore, what is visible today is more in the nature of exploratory political moves. Thus, possibly, the bonhomie between the West Bengal government and the Centre at the business summit has more to do with politics than economics and actual investment taking place. Either way, however, the state government should take advantage of this fortuitous moment and move forward with making West Bengal an investment-friendly destination.