Calcutta, Sept. 3: The road to Nayachar is still a long one but the Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee government has found some companions for the journey.

The Congress as well as the CPM’s three recalcitrant allies — the Forward Bloc, CPI and the RSP — have offered tentative support to the choice of Nayachar Island as the proposed site for the chemical hub.

The sympathetic stand helped the government limit some of the damage wrought by the Trinamul Congress boycott of an all-party meeting on the hub. “With the near-total consensus on Nayachar, the uncertainty about the project is over,’’ industries minister Nirupam Sen said after the meeting.

CPM state secretariat member Dipak Dasgupta said something that echoed little of the nuclear tension in Delhi. “The Congress’s role was very good today and it helped the government take a positive step forward,’’ he said.

Sen said the nuclear differences in Delhi would not affect the project. “The chemical project is certain irrespective of the developments in Delhi,” he told The Telegraph.

The economic logic behind shortlisting Nayachar may be debatable but the government seems to be keen on sending a political message. “Trinamul should come forward now as the problems of land acquisition, eviction and rehabilitation — the party’s main concerns — would not arise in Nayachar,’’ Sen said.

Trinamul leader Mamata Banerjee ridiculed the “all-party” meeting and iterated her opposition to the project on environment grounds but such concerns are unlikely to have the same resonance as eviction or land acquisition. The government has also set up an advisory board to address the environment concerns.

Sources said the Congress legislative party chief, Manas Bhuniya, and the chairman of the Assembly’s standing committee on industry and commerce, Sudip Bandopadhyay, backed the industrialisation drive.

Bhuniya said it was he who suggested Nayachar, though he reserved a final opinion till his party takes a decision.

The allies, too, sounded happy as the chief minister agreed to set up a committee to examine the environmental impact.