The legal battle between Tata Motors and the West Bengal government may be far from over, but the company’s boss, Ratan Tata, on Sunday took time off to compliment chief minister Mamata Banerjee on her handling of the fire fiasco at the AMRI Hospital that claimed more than 90 lives.
Late Saturday night, Tata tweeted that the circumstances that led to the early-Friday tragedy at the Kolkata hospital were “deplorable” and “inexcusable”.
“All hospitals’ primary mandate should be to save the lives of patients, and should not be driven by making extraordinary profits,” Tata said in his tweet. “Every doctor and staff member should be primarily concerned with the well being of patients with a responsibility for caring treatment. Doctors and attendants allegedly leaving patients to die unattended in these circumstances is unbelievable and deserves condemnation.” He also expressed his sympathies for the families of patients and the three staff members who lost their lives in an attempt to rescue patients. And, yes, he commended the “swift and firm action” of the chief minister.
Tata and Banerjee share a history that dates back to 2006, when she, as leader of the Opposition Trinamool Cong-ress Party, started campaigning against the corporate house’s Nano project in Singur. This ultimately led to Tata Motors relocating the project to Sanand in Gujarat —in October 2008.
Ever since, Tata often expressed his angst publicly; whether it was referring to Banerjee as the bad ‘M’, obliquely (when Sanand became home to Nano), or mentioning that Nano was launched “despite Mamata” while referring to the hurdles that it faced (at Delhi’s Auto Expo).
Banerjee’s main demand was to return the Singur property taken from the farmers, who did not wish to sell a plot from that 400-acre land.
Soon as she became the CM in May this year, Banerjee acted swiftly and firmly, living up to her electoral promise that the first file to sign would be Singur.
In fact, the first Cabinet meeting approved the return of 400 acres to the unwilling farmers of Singur.
