I may still invest in Bengal: Ratan Tata

It was a swan song that would please the Mamata Banerjee run West Bengal government for sure. Ratan Tata said on Friday that the group could set up a car plant in West Bengal, provided there was 'political friendliness'.

'Singur does not anger me, but there is a sense of sadness for not being able to set up the Nano plant here. But, if there is political friendliness, we could return to the state with another plant,' Tata said at the Tata Gobal Beverages in the city. 

Tata, who dined with the West Bengal governor M K Narayanan on Thursday, is already setting up a model cancer hospital in the state. 'We are an Indian group. There is no bias, no prejudice. Not at all. We will not walk away from Bengal,' an emotional Tata told his shareholders on Friday.

The Tatas are battling it out legally with the West Bengal government on returning the land which was acquired for the Nano plant by the previous government. '[The Singur case] is sub-judice today and whatever the outcome is, I think we will respect the law and wishes of the Bengal government,' he said.

In 2008, Tata had pulled out of the Nano plant at Singur, thanks to a powerful movement by landed farmers of the area, supported by Banerjee and the Trinamool Congress. Banerjee won the assembly election in 2011 thanks to the success of the land agitation at Singur and Nandigram.