Calcutta, Sept. 14: When the country’s most powerful Marxist meets corporate leaders, a little cut-and-thrust over China isn’t unexpected.

Except that it was India Inc that was swearing by the Red dragon and Prakash Karat the knight trying to slay its appeal.

“China has been cited to us again and again,” the CPM chief admitted at the meeting, organised by the eastern regional council of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industries (Ficci) in the city today.

“There are good things that the Chinese do, but certain things they do we won’t want in our country. We don’t mechanically copy everything the Chinese do,” insisted Karat, whose party had for decades held up China as a model for development.

One reason was the absence of democracy in the “people’s republic”.

“We are committed to multiparty democracy in India… unless you want to tell us that you want the political system in China to be introduced here,” Karat smiled at an audience that included S.K. Birla, Sanjay Budhia, M.K. Jalan and representatives from foreign consulates.

The CPM general secretary was speaking on the “agenda for inclusive growth” a day after the CPM politburo had ended a two-day conference. The bit about China came towards the end of the question-answer session.

Karat was probably responding to Ficci eastern region chairman C.K. Dhanuka, who had referred to the Chinese growth model and labour reforms.

“In China, the workers have an agreement with employers. Trade unions get involved only if one of the parties deviates from the agreement,” Dhanuka had said as he argued for labour reforms.

The subjects of labour market flexibility and special economic zones kept cropping up at the hour-long session.

“There is a valid case for reworking the rules governing SEZ…. We think in its present form, it will open the floodgates of real estate speculation,” Karat stressed while touting the Bengal model that has reserved 75 per cent of the area in these hubs for industrial and infrastructure firms.

“Inclusive growth”, he said, can be achieved by focusing on agriculture, creating jobs, ensuring social justice and removing regional imbalance.