New Delhi, May 21 :    New Delhi, May 21:  A business delegation's visit to the CPM state headquarters on Alimuddin Street on Sunday may have raised eyebrows, but for industry it is par for the course. The interest aroused in business circles by the meeting, however, has less to do with its venue and much more to do with the possibility of what is coming to be called the 'Calcutta grid' - a loose, amorphous network of political and business decision-makers who suddenly find themselves in a position to leverage their clout to improve the investment climate in Bengal. 'We do any number of meetings with any number of politicians in political party offices in Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Chennai or in any other place - why should anybody look askance at that,' wondered a senior official of the Confederation of Indian Industry. CII chief Sanjiv Goenka and its director-general, Tarun Das, were on the team that met chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee. Das had yesterday described the meeting as 'unprecedented'. Even the other apex chambers of commerce - Ficci and Assocham - are not surprised that the CPM should have welcomed a business team to its party office. 'It's a non-issue,' says Jayant Bhuyan, Assocham secretary-general. 'If, say, Sonia Gandhi meets industry leaders at 10 Janpath or in the Congress office, there is nothing unusual about it.' Assocham has put in a request for a meeting with Bhattacharjee through its constituent, the Bengal Chamber of Commerce. 'It makes little sense to play politics with the venue of the meeting. You do not argue with a chief minister on such things. It was a Sunday and if he had to open Writers' Buildings to meet an industry delegation, even that would have been turned into an issue. Either way, he would have been at the receiving end,' said a CII official. Given the CII's clout and reach, Bhattacharjee's goodwill - and the delegation found him 'very positive' - can help channel investment into Bengal. One of the suggestions the CII is understood to have made to the chief minister was to encourage a pro-active bureaucracy that should compete with counterparts in Andhra, Karnataka and Maharashtra to reach out and lure investors. This is where the 'Calcutta grid' can help. The three apex chambers of commerce are headed by businessmen and professionals who have deep roots in Calcutta. Goenka took over as president of the CII last month. Tarun Das is an alumnus of St. Xavier's College. Amit Mitra, the secretary-general of Ficci, is from Presidency College. Raghu Mody, head of Assocham, is a Calcutta-based industrialist. Together with Harshvardhan Neotia, who now heads the CII, eastern region, these men form an influential business group. Since the dismantling of the old economic regime, industry leaders have done away with inhibitions when it comes to meeting politicians. In Calcutta, even as the results of the Assembly elections were being announced, Neotia and Shishir Bajoria were in the Alimuddin Street office congratulating the CPM's winning candidates. Ficci, too, has been in close touch with Bhattacharjee since he took over as chief minister for the first time. S.K. Birla was a member of the Ficci delegation that had met Bhattacharjee shortly after he had taken over. Leading lights of Ficci are out of the country and are likely to ask for an appointment with Bhattacharjee after their return around June 12, said a spokesman. Among the apex industry organisations, the CII is the most aggressive and does not fight shy of admitting that it seeks to influence politicians to its way of thinking. It regularly organises meetings at its headquarters with politicians and makes elaborate presentations on the national and international economic environment and new policies that should be framed. Topping the CII's agenda is its work to thrash out a political consensus on economic reform. Despite the personal contacts Bhattacharjee might enjoy with these personalities, there are policies the CPM will continue to pursue that industry will be wary of. Bhattacharjee, personally, and his party are against policies they perceive are dictated by the WTO regime.