Bhattacharjee and Dhoot at Dabgram. Telegraph picture

Dabgram (Jalpaiguri), June 29: Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee today showered praise on Videocon chairman V.N. Dhoot for taking up challenging industrial projects in Bengal and coming up a winner every time.

“Everyone knows about Videocon as a leader in electronics and household goods, but I first got to know about them when the Philips factory in Salt Lake closed down.

“(Gautam) Sengupta of Videocon (the current chief operating officer) offered to take it over. He did, and Videocon’s performance has got better without retrenching any of the 1,000 employees,” said Bhattacharjee, whose drive against industrialisation has run into protests elsewhere in the state — from Nandigram and Singur to Mahishadal.

The chief minister was speaking at the ceremony to lay the foundation stone for Videocon’s latest forays in north Bengal — a biotechnology project and an IT complex spread across 50 acres here, 7 km from the heart of Siliguri.

“The IT park will provide jobs to 25,000 people.… I thank Dhoot from the bottom of my heart on behalf of the people of north Bengal,” he said.

Dhoot responded in kind. “The next time I speak here, it will be in Bengali,” he told the gathering of CPM and Citu supporters from Jalpaiguri and Siliguri and a smattering of CII members.

“I had taken up projects in Bengal despite warnings from my industrialist friends. But my experience has proved them wrong.”

His words would have been music to Bhattacharjee, grappling as he is with the violent protests in Nandigram and now the arrest of partymen for the rape and murder of a Singur protester.

The Salt Lake success story was repeated at the Philips Taratola unit, where 600 people are employed, said Bhattacharjee. “I have been regularly meeting Dhoot from then on, urging him to do more for Bengal, where there is a lot of skilled human resources,” he said.