Haldia (West Bengal), Jan 16: The big names from the corporate world gave it a miss, there were no fresh concrete business proposals, and the chief minister spent the major part of her speech attacking her favourite whipping boys - the central government, the media and the opposition. This sums up the inaugural session of Mamata Banerjee's investment summit that was devoid of the sound bytes that entrepreneurs and an industry-hungry state like West Bengal were waiting to hear.
To top it all, the opening programme of the second edition of "Bengal Leads" in this industrial-port town of East Midnapore district ended Tuesday with the rare sight of industrialists (Dhunseri Petrochem and Tea chairman C K Dhanuka and RP-Sanjiv Goenka chief Sanjiv Goenka) and politicians singing in chorus a slightly modified version of an evergreen Tagore song "Jodi tomar (tor in original) daak sune keu Na ase tobe ekla cholo re" (If no one responds to your call, then go your own way alone). They also sang a popular Hindi number, before concluding with the national anthem.
The opposition, however, was quick to seize on the song to take a dig at the chief minister. "She had put up so many of her pictures, posters, made lavish arrangements. But nobody turned up. While she kept on calling the investors at the inauguration, nobody was there. In the end, she had to sing in chorus Ekla cholo re", quipped Surjya Kanta Mishra of the Communist Party of India-Marxist in Kolkata.
