Kolkata, May 30 (IANS) West Bengal BJP president and Rajya Sabha member Samik Bhattacharya on Saturday claimed in a social media post that the Tata Group would return to the state with fresh investment proposals.

Referring to the exit of the Tata Motors’ Nano project from Singur in Hooghly district in October 2008, Bhattacharya said the group had been forced to leave amid the anti-land acquisition movement led by the Trinamool Congress under then Opposition leader Mamata Banerjee, who later became Chief Minister.

“The Tata Group will surely return to West Bengal. On October 3, 2008, the Tata Group was forced to leave Singur, West Bengal. The late industrialist Ratan Tata left West Bengal with a heavy heart. Even today, the people of Bengal have not forgotten that wound, because when industry leaves, not only one company quits, thousands of jobs are also lost, development comes to a halt, and the future of the youth is pushed into darkness,” read the social media post by Bhattacharya.

He also claimed that the BJP is of the firm belief that industrialization is the only way out for the overall development of West Bengal, and hence, his party had taken up the responsibility of bringing back the Tata Group to the state with investment proposals.

The BJP wants West Bengal to regain its past glory as an industrially bustling state and also a hub for investment and employment. The Tata Group will return to West Bengal. Industries will return. Jobs will return, and West Bengal will also move forward again towards development,” read Bhattacharya’s social media post.

Notably, after the then Tata Group chairman, Ratan Tata, announced the exit of the Nano project from Singur on the afternoon of October 3, 2008, the project’s next destination was Sanand in Gujarat, with Narendra Modi as the then Chief Minister of the state.

“I said that I will not pull out from Singur even if a gun is put to my head. But Miss Banerjee just pulled the trigger,” said an emotional Ratan Tata on October 3, 2008, in Kolkata while announcing the pull-out of the Nano Project from Singur.

–IANS

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