Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee: Chief minister who tried to break ground

Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee took charge to bring West Bengal on India Inc's investment map. He died with the dream unfulfilled

“How do you like the beginning?” a beaming Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee asked reporters.

It was May 18, 2006. Bhattacharjee had just been sworn in — at the sprawling Raj Bhavan lawn — as chief minister (he became chief minister in 2000) after a landslide victory.

From the ceremony, he headed straight for Writers’ Building, the red colonial structure where the state secretariat used to sit, for an announcement that would later go down as a watershed event in the history of Bengal politics. Ratan Tata had flown in along with the brass to make public the location of the small