Thursday, July 6 2006 10:27 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Thiruvananthapuram: Taking a leaf from his West Bengal counterpart, Kerala Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan, who was once dubbed anti-development, now seems to be bending over backwards to woo potential investors.

Soon after leading the Left to victory in the May assembly elections, the 82-year-old Achuthanandan began a series of meetings with industry leaders and investors in a bid to assuage their apprehensions that Communist rule would put the breaks on development in the state.

In doing so, he has perhaps drawn inspiration from West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, who has successfully effected an investor turnaround in a state where the Communists have entered the 30th year of their rule. Soon after taking over May 14, one of the first meetings Achuthanandan had was with US Technologies, a leading IT player in the state.

"The meeting was very cordial. He was optimistic and pledged all support to the IT industry," a US Technology official said after the meeting.

Krishnan Nair of the Mumbai-based Leela group had an equally pleasant experience. Last year, when Achuthanandan was leader of opposition, he had refused to as much as meet Nair when the Leela group took over the prestigious Kovalam Hotels from the government.

Then, there is the case of N.R. Harikumar, secretary of the Global Kerala Initiative - an organisation of resident and non-resident Keralites - who wanted to invite Achuthanandan to a three-day meet in London later this month showcasing Kerala.

"We were surprised when he said he will come only if something worthwhile in terms of investment comes through. He said he would welcome all investors who are willing to invest provided there are no strings attached," Harikumar said.

However, what surprised many was when Achuthanandan met Dubai-based officials of real estate giant Emaar Properties, which has proposed to build two knowledge cities at Thiruvananthapuram and Kochi.

Achuthanandan, who has sidelined the proposed Smart City project of Dubai Internet City, defended the meeting.

"What is wrong in meeting businessmen who have a proposal for investing in Kerala?" he asked.

"The only pre-condition is that they would have to abide by the policies of my Government," he said.

Leader of Opposition and former Congress chief minister Oommen Chandy is unimpressed by all this.

Just meeting investors would not help because confidence building measures were needed and Achuthanandan had done precious little on this front, Chandy maintained, adding that the momentum of the previous government had, in fact, gone into reverse gear.

"They organised a government sponsored bandh (shutdown) against the increase in fuel prices and all government employees who took part got their pay for that day," Chandy pointed out.

"They have also said that they would reverse the bill that we moved to contain militant labour," he added.