Why Trinamool's Warring Stance Against Adani Will Cost Bengal — Once Again

The Trinamool Congress has adopted a belligerent stance against industrialist Gautam Adani, in a bid to position itself as more anti-Narendra Modi than the Congress. 

But while this game of political one-upmanship is most unlikely to yield political dividends, what is certain is that it will cost Bengal very dear, by jeopardising future investments in the backward and revenue-deficit state. 

The Trinamool Congress has distinguished itself by taking the most aggressive position against Adani. 

While other parties have only demanded a joint parliamentary committee (JPC) probe into allegations levelled against the Adani group, the Trinamool has demanded Gautam Adani’s arrest. 

Last week, the Trinamool Congress requested all non-BJP governed states where the Adani group has investments to initiate probes into the group’s alleged stock market manipulations. 

Thursday (23 March) saw a bunch of Trinamool Congress MPs march to the offices of the Union Finance Minister, Enforcement Directorate (ED) and Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to demand the arrest of Gautam Adani. 

Their demand (for the arrest) was premised on the vague allegation of “misusing public money through institutions like LIC, SBI and others”. 

This bellicose anti-Adani stand of the Trinamool, which has targeted Gautam Adani personally, will spell disaster for Bengal which is starved of investments. 

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had, last month, labelled Gautam Adani as a ‘petty trader’.

Speaking at a public event at Howrah soon after the allegations against the Adani group surfaced in the Hindenburg report, Banerjee said: “Where do the common people keep their savings? Many in LIC, many in housing, many in banks. And where is all that money going? It is going to the home of an adar byapari (ginger trader).”

Adar byapari is a derogatory term for a petty trader in colloquial Bengali. 

Such derogatory references to a top industrialist of the country with big projects in various parts of the world, and demands for his arrest, will obviously create bad blood between the Adani group and the state government. 

What would appear surprising is that the Adani Group was awarded a contract to build the state’s first deep sea port at Tajpur, only in October last year.

In a highly-publicised event, Mamata Banerjee met Gautam Adani and his son Karan Adani, the chief executive officer of Adani Ports, after the Letter of Intent (LoI) for the proposed port was handed over to Adani Ports which is expected to invest Rs 25,000 crore in the project. 

She was personally present at the ceremony (where the LoI was handed over) and then praised Gautam Adani to the skies. 

Banerjee’s, and her party’s, U-turn on the Adanis are dictated by three considerations, all of them highly flawed. 

One, is that the meltdown in Adani’s stocks, and the sharp depreciation in the group’s market capitalisation, has jeopardised the Tajpur project. And so Adani Ports may not be able to execute the project, which is why Bengal does not need the Adanis any more. 

Two, that even if the Adani group recovers from the market mauling it has suffered, the Trinamool can always explain away its anti-Adani stand as one dictated by political compulsions which need to be disregarded. 

The third is that by calling for Gautam Adani’s arrest, the Trinamool Congress will emerge as the most vociferous Opposition party and the one with the strongest anti-BJP stance. 

The Trinamool, and other Opposition parties as well, believe that their punches on Adani are actually landing on Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The Trinamool MPs wore ill-fitting and comical caps with Modi-Adani written on them Thursday (23 March). 

All these three assumptions are highly flawed.

One, The Adani group, as business analysts know too well, is stable and going ahead with their investment plans all over the world as scheduled.

Two, the Trinamool’s plans to explain away its belligerence as ‘dictated by political compulsions’ to the Adanis is most unlikely to make then forgive and forget. 

And most of all, this brouhaha over the Hindenburg allegations will turn out to be much ado over nothing and die a quick death like all earlier attempts to tarnish the image of the BJP and Narendra Modi. 

What will only remain, especially in the minds of Gautam Adani and his group, is the belligerence of Mamata Banerjee and her party. 

And that will cost Bengal dear. Just as her bellicosity towards Ratan Tata 15 years ago, is still costing Bengal very dear. 

Banerjee had, while agitating against the forcible acquisition of land at Singur by the Left Front government under Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee for the Tata Motors’ Nano car project, turned her stir into a personal crusade against Ratan Tata. 

She had levelled strong accusations against Tata and attacked the veteran and widely-respected industrialist personally. 

Even when a reasonable agreement to end the stir brokered by the then governor, Gopalkrishna Gandhi, was offered to her, she rejected it purely out of political considerations and for her narrow political ends.

She stuck to her stand that the Tatas would have to abandon the project in Singur and withdraw from the state. 

Ultimately, Ratan Tata announced the pullout of the project from Bengal in early-October 2008. And an elated Mamata Banerjee bid Ratan Tata “ta-ta, goodbye”. That gesture, and her anti-Tata stance, is one of the main reasons why big investors continue to give Bengal a wide berth. 

The ghosts of Singur, and Nandigram, still haunt Bengal and will continue to do so in the foreseeable future. Mamata Banerjee has just made the going much worse for Bengal by targeting Gautam Adani for her narrow political ends. 

Mamata Banerjee has been trying her best to project herself as investor-friendly and has been rolling out the red carpet for top industrialists. She had held roadshows in top cities of the country to showcase Bengal as a prime investment destination. 

She has been holding big jamborees, ambitiously titled ‘Bengal Global Business Summits’, every year to get investments. 

Little of that has worked and few of the promised investments have actually materialised. Bengal has not seen a big-ticket investment in the past few decades and has been relying on small and micro enterprises to drive its placid growth. 

“Mamata Banerjee’s intransigence on the Singur issue and the manner in which she targeted Ratan Tata is still fresh in the minds of big investors. The fact that she forced the Tata project out of Bengal and revelled in her pyrrhic victory is something people will not forget easily. That is why she is still widely perceived to be anti-industry, mercurial and unreliable,” said an industry expert. 

“Bengal may hold big conventions with a lot of hoopla to attract investments. Big industrialists may even attend it. However they won’t invest in Bengal not only because they don’t see much prospects in that state, but also because they don’t have faith in the state’s leadership. You cannot insult and drive a big industrialist out of the state and expect others to come to the state forgetting the past. It just doesn’t happen that way,” industry analyst Maninder Singh told Swarajya. 

With this latest militant stand against the Adanis, and the Trinamool going as far as demanding Gautam Adani’s arrest and Mamata Banerjee insulting him as a “petty trader”, another big nail has just been driven in Bengal’s investment and industrial coffin. 

“This episode against the Adanis has proved yet again that Bengal is not an investor-friendly state and the ruling party (Trinamool) will sacrifice industrialists and their investments at the altar of political expediency without batting an eyelid,” said Singh. 

“The Trinamool’s posturing against Gautam Adani has sent a very negative message to India Inc. and this is something that no industrialist will forget in a hurry, It will cost Bengal very dear,” he added. 

Singh’s views found endorsement from all senior corporate personas and even industrialists and top businessmen in Bengal that Swarajya spoke to.

All of them, while refusing to be named for obvious reasons, said the Trinamool’s belligerence against the Adanis will prove to be calamitous and has dealt a fatal blow to Bengal’s investment prospects.