"I hope there's a bad 'M' and a good 'M'," Ratan Tata quipped shortly after Gujarat became a new home for his Nano small car project.
The remarks of Tata apparently alluding to the opposition by Mamata Banerjee to the Nano project in Singur in West Bengal and the red carpet rolled out to the business group by Chief Minister Narendra Modi came at a press conference in the presence of the BJP stalwart.
"I hope that there is a bad 'M' and a good 'M'. We need that transition," was the industrialist's quickfire response with Modi by his side to a question in a veiled reference to the approach of Mamata and Modi respectively to the project drawing peals of laughter.
Modi was asked by a newsman how his "journey of homecoming was from Mamata to Modi, from a nightmare to homecoming".
It was for the second time since Tata announced the pullout from West Bengal last Friday that he resorted to one-liners to convey a message to the politicians who played out the Nano drama.
"I think Mamata Banerjee has pulled the trigger", Tata said last Friday.
This was how a despondent Ratan Tata, who once said he will not pull out of Singur even at gun point, had summed up his group's "painful" decision to exit the project.