West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s elaborate and extravagant, like every other year, sixth Bengal Global Business Summit or BGBS witnessed top industrialists’ presence but attracted sharp criticisms and doubts from the Opposition parties in the state, which is battling dearth of jobs in the private sector.

Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress (TMC) government has managed to hold the business summit, the first in any Indian state, physically amid Covid-19 at the Biswa Bangla Convention Centre in Rajarhat, New Town here.

Like every other year, the Chief Minister tried to highlight her state’s geographical advantage besides taking potshots at the erstwhile Left Front government over the “loss of working days due to bandhs”.

Snubbing the two-day event, which saw industrialist Gautam Adani of Adani Group on the podium, CPI-M leader Sujan Chakraborty said, “Can the Chief Minister name six industries she has inaugurated in the last six years?”

“She lied saying the working days were lost in the Left Front regime. She had called a record number of bandhs being the Opposition leader in a bid to come to power,” Chakraborty said and added, “Instead holidays are increased manifold in this regime.”

Adani, whom the ruling TMC had called one of the two biggest beneficiaries in the Modi era, on Wednesday announced Rs. 10,000 crore investment in the state.

The investment will generate 25,000 employment directly or indirectly, Adani claimed.

Seeing no hope in the state, at least in terms of business and investment, former BJP state president and MP, Dilip Ghosh, said, “This summit is a new culture which is organised using taxpayers’ money. No one is aware of any investment which came in the last six years.”

This year, industry leaders from 19 countries are attending the summit.