TMC minister invites Tesla CEO to invest in Bengal, gets support from party, irks BJP

Kolkata: A West Bengal minister has invited Tesla CEO Elon Musk on Twitter to invest in the state for his electric car business after he publicly complained of facing challenges apparently with the central government.

State minority affairs and madrasah education minister Mohammed Ghulam Rabbani who made the appeal to Mr Musk also found support from his party: Trinamul Congress unlike BJP for his move ahead of the Bengal Global Business Summit which is supposed to be inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

On January 13 Mr Musk tweeted, "Still working through a lot of challenges with the government," while replying to Pranay Pathole who earlier asked him, "Yo @elonmusk any further update as to when Tesla's will launch in India? They're pretty awesome and deserve to be in every corner of the world!"

On Saturday, Mr Rabbani retweeted to Mr Musk, "Drop here, we in West Bengal have best infra & our leader @MamataOfficial has got the vision. Bengal means Business …"

He however earned wrath from BJP as it's IT cell chief Amit Malviya mocked him on Sunday in a tweet, "You might think it is a joke. But it isn’t! West Bengal’s minister in charge for Minority Affairs and Madrasa Education has made an offer to Elon Musk to come invest in WB. His pitch will start with Mamata Banerjee’s record on post poll violence and end with Singur agitation?"

Senior TMC MP Sougata Roy said, "Mr Musk is one of the best industrialists. He has the monopoly in electric car products. He has also built space rockets and satellites. So Mr Rabbani invited him to set up his business here as chief minister Mamata Banerjee has ensured availability of the best infrastructure. Mr Malviya is nonsense. BJP lost assembly polls under his leadership. What he says is irrelevant. Bengal is always industry friendly not being in favour of acquiring farmland forcibly for industry. Along with Mr Rabbani, I also invite Mr Musk to Bengal."