Tata makes it clear: If Bengal doesn’t want us, we will leave

An upset and emotional Ratan Tata on Friday said he would pull the Nano out of West Bengal if the state did not want it.

An upset and emotional Ratan Tata on Friday said he would pull the Nano out of West Bengal if the state did not want it. The “constant violence” and “disruption” at the site of the small car plant in Singur posed a threat to workers and equipment that he was not willing to accept, Tata said.

Within hours, a clearly rattled state government rushed into a press conference to assure Tata of its continued support. “The state’s people want this important project,” Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee said.

Mamata Banerjee, whose Trinamool Congress has been leading the agitation against the plant, however, reacted with belligerence. Tata could leave if he wanted to, she said, but the Trinamool would not be “blackmailed”.

“If any part of the state feels we are exploiting them, first of all it is totally untrue, we will exit,” Tata said. “We don’t want to be here as an unwanted investor. We do not want to come to an area where we perceive that we are unwanted. We want to be people’s corporate citizens here,” he added.

He was in Kolkata to attend the Tata Tea AGM, but afterwards accepted questions on Singur.

The company, which has already spent Rs 1,500 crore to set up the plant, has no “Plan B” as of now, Tata said.

“If anybody is under the impression that because we have made this large investment of Rs 1,500 crore…we would not move, we say no. We would move at whatever the cost to protect our people. I can’t bring our managers and their families to West Bengal if they are going to be beaten, and there is going to be violence constantly.

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“I am making a very genuine statement and I don’t have any ulterior motive. I made a very major investment in here and if we move that will be a great cost to the company and Tata Motors shareholders. I think it will be a great cost to West Bengal…”

Tata’s Singur plant, spread over 650 acres with another 350 acres earmarked for vendors who will supply parts, started facing resistance immediately after the land was acquired by the state government in September 2006.

“We leased property that was offered to us, the land that was already acquired…,” Tata said. “We believe and have no reason to disbelieve that it was acquired legally.

“I am an optimist. I am an Indian first and I believe West Bengal is very much a part of India,” he said.

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But there could be no business under police protection. “We can’t open and operate a plant with police protection, if that is the way it is to be before we start, you can well imagine our concern what will happen if we try to operate.”

A Trinamool-led farmers group is scheduled to begin a dharna at the gates of the factory on Sunday to demand that the government return 400 acres of land said to belong to farmers who are not willing to move out, and have refused to accept compensation cheques.

To Tata’s statements on Friday, Banerjee said: “If the Tatas go away, West Bengal will not be hurt….We are being blackmailed, and we will not bow to blackmail. We welcome industry but there has to be agriculture too.