Bengal's new CM Buddhadeva Bhattacharyya completed his first 100 days in office on February 14. It may be early days yet, but his style of functioning is in sharp contrast to that of his predecessor, Jyoti Basu. Setting a scorching pace, Bhattacharyya has been everywhere and tries to oversee every aspect of his administration. He not only addresses the grievances of the rural poor, but also responds to urban middle-class criticism regarding state-mismanaged schools and unruly government hospitals. The new CM's hands-on approach has won him kudos from even critics of the cpi(m).
The workaholic CM is also favourably disposed towards industry. He allotted land to Wipro for a major IT project the very day he took office on November 6 last year. Companies like itc, the Tatas, Patton, hll, Videocon and Mitsubishi have approached the government for setting up new projects since. Computer software exports this fiscal could go up to Rs 1,000 crore from a zero base until recently. "It no longer involves a leap of faith to believe in Bengal's future," says a senior official.
During the past two years, new investments worth around Rs 30,000 crore have been secured and as against an anticipated 150 downstream units for the Haldia petrochemical project, 370 have come up so far. New punctuality and work norms have been fixed for government departments.
Bhattacharyya's also been visiting people hit by floods and those victimised by criminals in the villages. He's also working overtime to ensure uninterrupted productivity in the state. He doesn't encourage dubious investors, has no controversial family members to defend, nor does he use uncivil language to criticise Mamata Banerjee. No wonder the opposition finds it difficult to target him as it did Basu.
There has been a definite swing in popular support even among the urban middle classes in Bengal towards the Left Front after Bhattacharyya took over. Which makes the recent cpi(m) split that much more unfortunate for him personally and the cpi(m). Bhattacharyya enjoys warm personal relations with Choudhury, Chakravarty and Putatunda, but could not persuade them to stay on.