Industry drive, PPPs put Mamata Banerjee in a bind

When West Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee's industrialisation drive dramatically collapsed in the wake of the Nandigram and Singur agitations, it was clear that government-sponsored industrial development in the state would have to be a balanced affair. While private sector investments were a requirement, social responsibilities could not be forgotten either.

As Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee presented her budget on Wednesday, the issues that she had created during her successful agitations, which have put the incumbent Left Front government on the backfoot, were seemingly coming back to haunt her.

At the helm of the country's largest public sector entity, Banerjee made an impassioned plea in her budget to attract private investments into the Indian Railways. Not just that, she also announced the establishment of a special task force to fast-track the ordinarily slow processes presently in place. “The need of the hour is to develop new models to invite public private partnership (PPP) in the Railways,” she said. But this was the same politician, who less than two years ago, led the ferment against the Tata's setting-up their small car plant at Singur; the project that Bhattacharjee had envisioned as his industrial showpiece. At the height of the protests, she had spoken vehemently against industry and in support of the land-losers. On Wednesday, she attempted at wooing industry and placating land-losers for the slew of new projects she announced, at the same time.

“On the one hand, the Trinamool Congress challenged the Left Front policy on fast-lane industrialisation. Also, in the way, they were critical of the way the government was inviting investors into the state. With the question of PPP becoming crucial for the Railways, there is an inherent dilemma (for Mamata Banerjee),” political analyst Sabyasachi Basu Ray Chaudhury said. “This may not nag her now, but with the Assembly elections due next year, this is likely to be an issue that will be raised by the Left Front,” he added.

That, however, could be ironic. As much of what Banerjee has crafted in both her Railway budgets as part of the incumbent United Progressive Alliance(UPA) government, was with an eye on the hustings in 2011.

On its part, the Trinamool Congress claims that its stand is well-defined. “You have to see the whole spectrum. She (Banerjee) has to depend on the PPP mode if freight and passenger tariffs are not to be increased. We are not private investment. But we will not allow them to grab farm land,” TMC leader and Opposition Leader in state Assembly Partha Chatterjee explained.

But the CPI(M) isn't buying the theory. “Read the TMC manifesto. It states that the party is against the privatisation of the public sector. But she (Banerjee) is now privatising the country's largest public sector company,” CPI(M) leader and state tourism minister Manab Mukherjee argued.