By IANS,
Kolkata : West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee Monday termed as “one-sided” and “distorted” the recent WikiLeaks cables which claimed that he was in favour of liberalisation and economic reforms.
A media report, quoting cables released by whistleblower website WikiLeaks, said that the Marxist leader in a conversation with US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson in 2007 had said that he was in favour of economic liberalisation.
“It surprises me that my conscious reiteration of the publicly stated policies of our government and our party has been one-sidedly represented by the author of the cable.
“Hence, it is obviously a distorted version of our discussion,” said a statement by Bhattacharjee, a senior politburo member of the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M).
“It is well known that while we are opposed to neo liberal globalisation and liberalisation, we cannot insulate ourselves from its impact. Therefore we ‘engage’ with this process to protect the working people from its anti-poor consequences. It is apparent that the author of the cable has misrepresented this,” the statement added.
The leaked cables made front page news in a vernacular daily of the state, which also claimed that Bhattacharjee was eager to have Dow Chemicals invest in the state. The company had taken over Union Carbide, which was responsible for the Bhopal gas tragedy of 1984.
“On Dow Chemicals, I had pointed out that subject to Dow Chemicals owning up responsibility for compensating the victims of Bhopal disaster, we want the company to invest in the proposed chemical hub project. Quite clearly, the aspect of the responsibility of Dow Chemicals has been left out in the cable,” the statement added.