A day before his finance minister, Asim Dasgupta, is set to leave for the United States to seek investment in West Bengal, the Chief Minister, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, slammed both US and the UPA government at the Centre for holding the Indo-US joint exercise at Kalaikunda.Speaking at a rally in Nadia’s Krishnanagar, Bhattacharjee said: ‘‘I have told the Prime Minister that we do not support this joint exercise. What is the need of US friendship? It did not do any good to any country. They (the US) are murderers, their hands are stained with blood. George Bush is the biggest liar of the world.’’Bhattacharjee noted that it made better sense to side with China and Russia which would make India a big power.Expressing his strong disapproval of an Indo-US alliance, he said: ‘‘Why are we afraid of the US? Is it because they will not give us money? Are we beggars? The IMF and the World Bank cannot dictate terms to us. I clearly told the Prime Minister to stop this friendship’’.In his address to the gathering, Bhattacharjee denounced the US killings in Iraq and repeatedly questioned the rationale behind India’s growing ties with the US.‘‘I have heard that India has taken up this joint exercise because the US is our strategic partner. What strategy are we talking about? They have killed thousands of innocents in Iraq and Afghanistan. We do not support Saddam but clearly the mass murder of innocent people is unpardonable,’’ he said.Despite proclaiming that ‘‘we are not beggars’’, the Chief Minister, however, proudly mentioned that finance minister Asim Dasgupta is heading for the US, where he will be meeting CEOs of top US companies to seek investment for the state. ‘‘We already have US companies in the IT sector like IBM and Cognizant etc. but we want the US to invest in other sectors too’’.Bhattacharjee said he has given the go-ahead to Pepsi to set up a unit at Howrah to manufacture potato chips.‘‘Though I do not drink Pepsi myself, I told the Pepsi people that West Bengal is the right destination for investment. In fact, Pepsi has already set up a factory in Howrah and is also keen on investing in other areas of food processing,’’ he added.
