Much before things took an unexpected turn at Singur in West Bengal, Modi had first suggested Ratan Tata during the Vibrant Gujarat Summit in January 2007 to move out of Singur and shift to Gujarat.
"We will give you everything you require here," he had told Tata in the presence of a top Tata Chemicals executive and some senior government officials. It was at this event that Tata had said: "You are stupid if you are not in Gujarat."
After the first round of talks with Mamta Banerjee failed and Tata threatened to pull out of Singur, Modi was the first chief minister to roll out a red carpet for the Nano project.
A few days before moving out of Singur, top Tata Motors officials had called up the powers that be at Gandhinagar to inquire about a possible re-location to Gujarat.
Only too aware that several other states like Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Uttarakhand and Maharashtra were going all out to bag the project, Modi set the Gujarat state machinery to work at full throttle.
Image: The new Tata Nano. | Photograph: Raveendran/AFP/Getty Images
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