Calcutta, Jan. 13: Stung by criticism that his government cared little about farmers while acquiring their land for industries, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee today made a commitment to take the responsibility of their rehabilitation.

Addressing a rally at Brigade Parade Grounds on the eve of the CPM state conference, he said: “Wherever land is required for industry, from Singur to Siliguri, people have to give land. But we will try our best to avoid taking over fertile land and also take care of the landlosers.

“It’s the responsibility of the government. We can’t tell the farmers in Singur or elsewhere that they have to fend for themselves after the acquisition of land.”

This is not the first time Bhattacharjee has made such a gesture, but today’s statement sounded more like a pressing political task than a “moral duty”.

The party conference will review the land acquisition row and is likely to stress on a more acceptable compensation and rehabilitation package.

Bhattacharjee, supported strongly by party patriarch Jyoti Basu and state secretary Biman Bose, forcefully defended the drive for industrialisation while “not neglecting the development of the state’s agriculture”.

He almost echoed Deng Ziao Ping, the father of reformed communists in China, who had said: “It doesn’t matter if a cat is black or white, so long as it catches mice.”

Bhattacharjee said: “For us, it matters little who are investing, the Tatas, Birlas, Jindals or the Americans or the Japanese. We have only one concern — how many jobs it (the project) will create.”

On Tata Nano, the small car slated to roll out from Singur, he said: “I’m asked who’ll buy this new small car. I say I’m more interested in the factory giving jobs to 6,000 hands.”

The “chemical hub in Nayachar and the seven large steel plants” coming up in the state “will ensure jobs for lakhs”.

Bhattacharjee’s invitation to foreign direct investment without any mention of sectors apparently struck a discordant note because of the party general secretary’s refusal to allow “FDI in insurance, banking, retail and farm business”.

Prakash Karat said: “The Centre is trying to bring in FDI in these sectors under US pressure. We won’t accept it.”

The CPM leaders called for a dialogue with the Left Front partners who had slammed the Big Brother’s wooing of private capital.

Two of the allies, the RSP and the Forward Bloc, stayed away from today’s rally.

Basu, Bose and Karat spoke on ruptures in the front and harped on the need for unity ahead of the panchayat polls.

“The polls this time will be different as our enemies will try to wrest our rural bastion for the first time. It is the most important political task for us now to maintain the poor people’s unity and the front’s,’’ said Bose.

The Bloc has decided to go it alone in the rural polls.

Responding to the allies’ criticism that the CPM was practising capitalism, Basu said: “Our goal is socialism. But we can’t make false promises to the people. Is it possible to build socialism in one state in a federal country? For that, we have to capture power in Delhi.”