NEW DELHI: While Narendra Modi in Gujarat celebrates the addition of the Nano feather to his cap, the CPM in West Bengal on the other side of the country is also rejoicing, but quietly and for entirely different reasons.

In one deft stroke, by stepping aside to facilitate the Tata pullout of the Singur project, the Left has finished its chief electoral rival Mamata Banerjee and put industrialisation back on the political agenda of Bengal in time for the upcoming general elections.

It moved almost as per the script and Banerjee was caught in a pincer move, with both Ratan Tata and Left leaders pinning the blame on her for the closure of the Singur plant.

Banerjee was left whining that it was "unfair" as CPM mobs went on a rampage to whip up public anger against her and the Trinamool for depriving Bengal of a prized industrial project.

For the Left, the Tata pullout presents a window of opportunity to recapture political ground lost to Banerjee during months of violence and unrest in Nandigram and Singur. Layering their rhetoric with Bengali subnationalism, Left leaders have turned the tables on Banerjee by subtly questioning her commitment to the states development and economic prosperity.

"We want to raise our head again," chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya said on Sunday. "Only agriculture will not help us for further progress. We need industrialisation for total development."

There is little doubt that in this round, the Left has come out on top with a show of quick political reflexes while Banerjee once again displayed a poor sense of timing. Carried away on a tide of populist emotion, she seems to have failed to spot the critical moment when the CPM decided to cut its losses and negotiate a safe passage out of the controversy with the Tata's.

The terms of agreement between the Left governmenzt in Bengal and the Tatas for the closure of the Nano plant are not known yet but it clearly suits both to make Banerjee the scapegoat for the souring of a dream project. Nano has had a soft landing in Gujarat while the Left has been presented a stick with which it can beat Banerjee in the months ahead.

For a while, it seemed that industrialisation had become a dirty word in Bengal. As Banerjee, backed by a group of maverick NGOs, lit fires in Nandigram and Singur, the CPM fumbled to defend itself against growing criticism of its moves to put Bengal on the fast track to industrial development. The Politburos friction with the UPA government at the center over a string of economic policies and the nuclear deal only hampered the Bengal units efforts to tackle its mounting political problems in the state.

With the Lefts national profile shrinking after it withdrew support to the UPA, the cobwebs that had clouded the CPMs politics in Bengal seem to have cleared. It can revert to regional nationalism to beat Banerjee. The results of next year's parliamentary polls will tell whether the Left has managed to recoup its political losses but for the moment, it can gloat over Banerjees discomfiture as the villain in the Nano story.

Source : DNA