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Updated: Apr 30, 2019 11:29 IST

The Trinamool Congress’s relations with the Tata group have come full circle 11 years after the party and its leader, Mamata Banerjee, forced one of India’s largest business groups to shift its prestigious small car (Nano) project out of Singur in the state.

Today, the Tata group is part of the Trinamool’s poll campaign to highlight the state’s success in attracting businesses.

A video released online on April 29 talks about the Tata group in the Trinamool-ruled state. “We welcome large companies, including the Tatas, in Bengal,” says the party’s Rajya Sabha floor leader and chief spokesperson, Derek O’Brien, in the video.

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Trinamool’s turnaround on Tata is aimed to showcase the industry-friendly face of the Banerjee government ahead of the last three phases of polling that will take place largely in urban and semi-urban areas, including Singur, the site of the doomed project. Ever since she came to power in 2011, Banerjee has been trying to seek fresh investments even as critics have pointed to her stubborn policies on land acquisition — a politically sensitive issue for the state — that led to Tata’s exit from Singur.

“Today, we will tell you about Tatas. Tata Hitachi has moved their headquarters from Ranchi to Bengal. We welcome the Tatas. It’s a large scale manufacturing company. They make excavators. Now, we have so many Tata offices here,” a beaming O’Brien says in the video.

“Tata Sponge is shifting their registered office from Keonjhar to Kolkata. It’s all happening in Bengal,” O’ Brien adds. “That’s why she [Banerjee] is all set to win 42 out of 42 seats.