In a reminder of what went wrong for the Left Front in West Bengal, all top four champions of industrialisation in the state lost in these elections.
Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, Industry Minister Nirupam Sen, Finance Minister Asim Dasgupta and Urban Development Minister Ashok Bhattacharya were seen as poster boys of the government’s attempts to attract industry to the state. They all belong to CPI(M).
Bhattacharjee was defeated by a Trinamool newcomer, Manish Gupta, who was his favourite bureaucrat till a few years ago.
Nirupam Sen even authored a book Bikolper Sondhane (In Search of Alternative) to hail the party’s approach to industrialisation. Sen and Bhattacharjee travelled to Germany and Indonesia to attract investments and played a key role in talks with the Tata group to bring the Nano project to the state. Asim Dasgupta, the Harvard-returned finance minister, played an important role in offering sops to industry and supported the chief minister in his drive to bring investments to the state.
Though the team failed to convert Singur and Nandigram into industrial hubs, Ashok Bhattacharya — CPI(M)’s face in North Bengal — did his bit. He succeeded in setting up a housing project of the Ambuja group and another residential project in Chandmoni Tea Estate.
Team Bhattacharjee always argued that land reforms had reached a saturation level and industrialisation was the only way forward for the state.
Trinamool Congress leader Mamata Banerjee, on her part, tried to project the former land reformers as land grabbers. The results show she succeded.
After Singur and Nandigram episodes, the party and the government tried to salvage their image, even asking industry to buy own land. But these efforts seemed to have come too late in the day.
A total of 26 out of 34 Left ministers have lost the elections.
