Calcutta, Oct. 4: Nirupam Sen has nothing to say on industrialisation any more.

The industries minister arrived at the CPM’s Alimuddin Street headquarters today to inform the Ganashakti editor he couldn’t write the article assigned to him. The subject: Singur and industrialisation.

“What is left to write on industrialisation in Bengal, especially in Singur? I’m in no mood to either think or write about it,” he told The Telegraph.

After Ratan Tata announced he was moving the Nano small-car project yesterday, Sen had said he did not feel like living in Bengal any more.

He said today his Nano “dream” was “shattered”, but he had never imagined that “procedural matters” could be carried to a level where the Tatas would be forced to pull out. “I’m disillusioned and I’m sad that such a thing could have happened to this state.”

Sen was not the only person who was downcast. The other champion of the Nano, chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, was quiet and “introspective” through the day, party colleagues said.

“The chief minister looked sad and did not interact with me when I reached the party office today,” state secretariat member Benoy Konar said.

“We had all pinned our hopes on the Nano project as we believed it would showcase Bengal as an industrially developed state.”

Bhattacharjee spent most of the day at the party headquarters where a blood donation camp was under way.

“He just exchanged pleasantries with a few people, but otherwise kept to himself,” a leader said.

Bhattacharjee may not have said much, but Sen gave vent to his disappointment. “I feel sad such a thing has happened in Bengal,” he repeated.

“Narrow political considerations have destroyed a project that would have created jobs in the state and helped bring in other industries.”

Sen said the language of the Opposition was “not one of a democratic political movement”. “It is a matter of concern that they have so many supporters. It is a matter that needs to be reflected on.”

Barring the visit to the party office, Sen stayed home all day.

“The death knell of the project was sounded the day (activist) Anuradha Talwar and her associates gheraoed the factory and assaulted the foreign consultants,” he said. “But even then, I had thought the Opposition would not proceed any further, keeping the interests of the state in mind.”

Sen termed the pullout a “huge, sad chapter in Bengal’s history” and wondered whether the state would get such an opportunity again.

“For the Tatas, the pullout may not be something momentous, but for the state it is a huge loss,” he said.