Calcutta, May 14: Fireworks lit up the night sky and the sparkle of a hilsa reflected on Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee’s face as he told a felicitation gathering that Calcutta would be turned into an international city.

The CPM zonal committee of Jadavpur, where the chief minister has won by 58,000 votes, had lined up a ceremony like no other for a communist leader in Bengal.

A brass band played marching tunes as pots of koi fish and rosogolla lay in wait to be handed over to him.

Bhattacharjee matched his words to the occasion.

“I’m overwhelmed by the support you have provided me,” he said, holding up the hilsa for some 4,000 people at the Dinabandhu Andrews College ground in Jadavpur to see.

Bhattacharjee’s Calcutta would be international, but “it would not be possible if the people belonging to the economically weaker section cannot be included in the scheme of things”.

The chief minister would want Calcutta to be like Ho Chi Minh City, where he went recently. There he saw how the profile of a place can be overhauled and poverty overcome.

“In Calcutta, there has been development on both sides of the (EM) Bypass. A number of housing estates and shopping malls have come up. But at the same time, we must remember that a section of people living in the city are economically weak and could not be provided with quality life,” he said.

“Investors are coming and we must welcome them and convince them that Bengal is an ideal destination,” added the Marxist leader, who had said in Delhi yesterday that he was having to compromise with capitalists for the sake of the state.

Though “overwhelmed”, the chief minister could not but mention that everything wasn’t fine.

“We must not hide our failures. We should strongly criticise ourselves.”

He picked health for some extra emphasis. There is the required infrastructure in state-run facilities, he said, but the hospitals lack cleanliness and discipline.

The standard of education, too, was a concern. The CPM this time denied nomination to all five ministers holding charge of the education-related departments.

The chief minister was also mindful of the fact that he had won the elections ri-ding people’s expectations. He said: “The people are harbouring a lot of hopes. The new cabinet should work with a proper understanding and ensure speedy implem- entation of projects.”

Among others present were the Left Front MLAs from South 24-Parganas and the southern fringes of Calcutta.

The mood of the evening and the measure of the ? still very fresh ? success underlined the need for the chief minister to be magnanimous. “I’m congratulating even those who did not vote for me,” he said.

His wife Meera, too, thanked all.