Nirupam Sen comes out of Writers’ Buildings on Thursday. Picture by Bishwarup Dutta

Calcutta, Sept. 25: The Bengal cabinet today appealed to the Tatas “not to pull out”, betraying its desperation by taking up a matter outside the day’s agenda to issue the first such request in recent memory to an investor.

Chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and his colleagues also pleaded their case with the Opposition as well as “the people of West Bengal”.

“The cabinet appeals to the Tatas not to pull out of the project in Singur and also to the Opposition to accept the rehabilitation package. The state government has also assured all help and co-operation to the Tatas to implement the project, ” said a statement drafted by the chief minister.

Appeals on such matters are rarely made by the cabinet. “I have never heard the cabinet make such an appeal during my stint as a minister. It is normally made by the chief minister on behalf of the cabinet,” said Sailen Sarkar, a minister since 1982.

The chief minister’s statement conceded that the matter was not on the cabinet’s agenda. “But the matter was taken up following requests from the ministers,” it said, adding that a unanimous resolution was adopted after a discussion.

The statement sought co-operation from the people in the interest of the state’s development. The Telegraph had reported yesterday that the CPM wanted the government to make an appeal to the Tatas.

Singur was raised by fisheries minister Kiranmoy Nanda after the cabinet’s routine proceedings, sources said. The chief minister requested industries minister Nirupam Sen to issue an appeal to the Tatas. But Sen said he had already done so.

Manab Mukherjee, Srikumar Mukherjee and Sudarshan Roychoudhury said the government shouldn’t sit idle, according to the sources. “We have been elected to work for people’s welfare and take the state forward. Let us at least make one last try,” Srikumar was quoted as saying.

It was then decided that the entire cabinet would appeal to the Tatas and the Opposition.

Accounts of ministers present at the meeting painted a grim picture. “The situation has come to such a pass that it is doubtful whether the Tatas will stay here,” PWD minister Kshiti Goswami quoted Bhattacharjee as saying.

Bhattacharjee apparently said the Tatas had “expressed their apprehensions about the Nano plant because of the Opposition’s stubborn stand”.

He added: “Although we requested the Tatas to resume work, they said the atmosphere was not congenial. They don’t want to work under police protection.”

The Trinamul Congress was unmoved. “An appeal from the government that disobeys its constitutional head does not carry any weight,” said Partha Chatterjee of the Trinamul.