Mamata hints at political pressure behind delay

Kolkata: Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee announced postponement of her scheduled inauguration of the Birla Opus Paints manufacturing unit in Kharagpur on Thursday. Banerjee hinted at a ‘conspiracy’ of the BJP behind the issue, though she did not name any political party.

On Tuesday, Banerjee had announced that she would inaugurate the unit of the group at Vidyasagar Industrial Park in Kharagpur, West Midnapore. “Yesterday (on Tuesday), I announced that I would inaugurate the Birla Opus paint factory. Everything was ready. But within half-an-hour, I received a message. I don’t want to blame the authorities but I have received a letter citing some health-related issue of one of the top brass of that organisation. So, the event has been postponed for now and will be held later,” Banerjee told reporters at Kolkata airport after her return from North Bengal. She alleged that the sequence of events is the work of a ‘highly loaded virus’.

“It’s the work of a highly-loaded virus. Everyone is being threatened. It’s a dangerous situation,” said Banerjee.

Political observers believe that Banerjee has implied that pressure from the BJP, who is in power at the Centre, led to the sudden postponement of the event. Banerjee had said on Tuesday that the inauguration programme was settled a month back. The Birla Opus plant—being set up on 80 acres of land with an investment of Rs 1,000 crore is expected to create around 2,000 direct and indirect jobs in the state.

The Mumbai-based Aditya Birla Group, which owns Birla Opus Paints, also has multiple ongoing and planned investments in Bengal.

Its subsidiary, UltraTech Cement, India’s largest cement producer, is currently establishing a new cement grinding unit in the state.