Since taking charge of West Bengal in 2000, from veteran Communist leader Jyoti Basu,the ‘capitalist’ Chief Minister of World’s longest serving democratically elected Marxist Government,Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, a poet and playwright,began traveling the world and wooing foreign Investors to set up shops in Calcutta,renamed as Kolkata. Foreign Companies as well as Indian giants like Tata Motors responded positively.Tata is setting up a factory for its low-cost-car project at Singur, 40 km away from Calcutta despite violent protest. But,under pressure from opposition parties and within his Left coalition, Buddhadeb had decided to abandon plans for a chemical zone at Nandigram in East Midnapore District.He claimed full responsibility for violence on March 14,2007 when police firing left 14 protesters dead and several people injured.Farmland fiasco tarnish the clean imeage of Buddhadeb.His subsequent remarks against intellectuals who oppose Government decision of farmland accusation didn’t go down well with the mass people.Land acquisition specially farmland will be a major challenge for the new government.The Nandigram debacle show that Government of other states must rethink their their plans for special Economic Zones(SEZs).Once a prosperous industrial state,mainly due to militant unionism most of the Industries in West Bengal are either sick or closed down.Other states like Maharashtra,TamilNadu, Andhra pradesh show tremendous growth in terms of Foreign Direct Investment(FDI).
In the 2011 assembly elections, Mamata Banerjee the temperamental supremo of the main opposition party, TMC is in a better position than Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee. According to experts, during the tenure of 34-year-long tenure of CPI(M) led Left Front government, it is struggling to retain its hold over the state because its misrule has caused deterioration of law and order and political disorder.
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