The CPI-M today said it would talk to the Tatas and other companies to set up industry in Singur if voted to power in the upcoming Assembly election in West Bengal.
"We will talk to the Tatas and everybody," CPI-M state secretary Surjya Kanta Mishra said when asked if his party would again approach the Tatas to come to Singur from where they had to shift their small car factory to Gujarat after a prolonged agitation shepherded by the Trinamool Congress.
Mishra told PTI they were even prepared for a situation in which "the Tatas set certain conditions which we can't agree" and in that case they would try to find somehting new.
He, however, said, "I don't want to name any specific industrial house."
On whether the Left Front had made a mistake by not taking the Singur farmers into confidence while acquiring land for Tata's Nano car factory, he replied, "We had indeed taken them into confidence. 90 per cent farmers had given their consent".
"But even then I think we made a review of entire thing and felt one has to be patient in dealing with sensitive issues. Land is sensitive to farmers. We have taken care of it. It is a sensitive issue and should be handled carefully. It can be settled amicably. I had said this in the state Assembly. Legal battle is not necessary," Mishra said.
"We will see. The people understand by their experiences. Now unwilling farmers, whatever little their numbers may be, they are convinced that they were misguided as they neither got their land nor industry," he said.
Whatever the chief minister had promised, she failed to deliver and failed to to return the farmers' land, he said.
Claiming that the previous Left Front government had done a lot for the industry, he said, "In the last three years of Left rule we had attracted huge investments in the manufacturing sector. But in last five years of TMC rule it has not even crossed Rs 1,500 crore," he claimed.
"Our main aim is to generate employment for the youth of the state. It has been completely stagnant during the TMC rule," he said.
The CPI-M-led Left Front is contesting the Assembly election in alliance with the Congress.
