West Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee has termed as "distorted" and "one-sided" the WikiLeaks revelation that he had invited Dow Chemicals to a proposed chemical hub, saying invitation was made on condition that the company owned responsibility of compensating Bhopal gas tradegy victims.
"I had categorically stated that we want Dow Chemicals to invest in the proposed chemical hub in the state, subject to the company accepting responsibility for compensating the victims of Bhopal gas disaster. The responsibility aspect has been left out in the cable," Bhattacharjee said in a statement here.
Commenting last night on the cables released by the whistleblower website on his reported conversation with US treasury secretary Henry Paulson in October, 2007 at the state secretariat, Bhattacharjee said he explained the context as otherwise confusion might prevail on his statement which was presented in a "distorted and one-sided" manner.
On the claim of the WikiLeaks cables that he was in favour of liberalisation and economic reforms, he said, "It has been our long-standing position that we will take a positive stand on those investments which will increase production and production capacity, enhance technological efficiency and most important boost employment opportunities."
He explained that while they were opposing global neo-liberalism, it was proving futile to keep 'us' free from its effects altogether.
"Therefore to keep the labour class free of the anti-poor consequences of these policies, we have to keep engaged with this process," he said.