New Delhi: "The businessmen, whoever you are, (if your are) staying in Bengal you don't worry. If I murder somebody, that's a different case. Crime is crime; you cannot compare the crime activities with the business activities. Law of the land has to be followed."
With that grim assurance to investors, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee boldly plunged into a sales pitch for attracting investment in the cash-strapped state at the recent Bengal Leads 2012 business summit in Kolkata.
She made the most of her 15-minutes of podium time mixing up cricket metaphors and confusing geographical boundaries with her characteristic confidence.
Her audience, mostly middle-aged industrialists in pin-striped suits and sober ties, were seen smiling embarrassedly as she addressed them individually demanding they invest in her state for the betterment of the entire northeast region. She referred to it as the "northeast countries."
Her trademark bluster repeatedly drew smiles as she parried with a hall packed with industry A-listers in a curious roll call of sorts. "Mr Jindal is here? You have some land problem? Government, they cooperate with you or not? Fully we cooperate," she said, addressing Sajjan Jindal, Chairman-cum-Managing Director of JSW Steel and Sanjay Budhia, Managing Director of the Patton Group.
She asserted that her government will ensure there were no problems with the company holding land in excess of the ceiling limit. "We have set up the industrial infrastructure committee. Every appeal from that committee on a case-to-case basis will be addressed. There is a serious case for industry and we will clear it. I don't think that I can do anything alone without your help."
When it came to describing why Bengal was beneficial for the entire North East region and for neighbours Bangladesh and Pakistan, geographical boundaries took a severe hit.
"It (Bengal) is the gateway of North Eastern (states). Bengal is the foundation state for the North-Eastern countries. Bengal is the border of Bangladesh. Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh are the border of Pakistan. If you invest in Bengal then automatically Bangladesh will be benefited. North Bengal is the gateway of Sikkim also," she ploughed on with what turned out to be an entertaining speech in pure Didi style.
But her cricket analogies were perhaps a bit much even for her sporting aggregation of businessmen. "I do the bat directly. I don't play the bat only just like a match fixing. If I want to do the things I will do it. If I bowl, I will (be) bowled out for this and if I am ready to do the batting I will (be) batting for the people, batting for industry and agriculture also."
"May I ask you, what is your problem? Will you invest the money in Bengal? What is the problem? May I just ask my embassy? Japan embassy? Do you have any problem? Japan do you want to invest money in Bengal? Yes? My China friends? I think they are here. USA? Are you interested or not? UK? My German friends? Are my Bangladesh friends here (why, haven't they been invited?) ITC? Interested? Thank you so much. Mr Jindal? Mr Goenka. How many of your are from the small scale industry, do raise your hands."
If her audiences were unnerved with the roll call, they did not show it.
But it was back to Didi's school for many as she repeatedly asked them to raise their hands to indicate their interest in investing in Bengal. The packed summit was attended by the ITC Chairman YC Deveshwar, Chairman of Punj Lloyd Group Atul Punj and Rajeev Singh and Sanjeev Goenka of RPG. She address Goenka directly on his power projects at Haldia.
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