Hello, London, a baggage short - Message in place of stay

Devadeep Purohit, TT, London, July 26: After Air India Flight 111 from Delhi to Heathrow touched down at Terminal 4 this evening, Mamata Banerjee headed to 45-51 Buckingham Gate, which will be her address till the evening of July 30 this English summer.

St James' Court, a central London hotel, has been a favourite with visiting Indian dignitaries. Still, the Bengal chief minister's decision to stay there catches the eye for two reasons.

One, communist patriarch Jyoti Basu would check into this hotel through the 1980s and 1990s during his two-week summer trips to London, which he would keep largely free of official engagements.

Old-timers recall how Basu would celebrate his birthday on July 8 at this hotel along with a few friends from the world of industry, or go out to watch plays.

In 1996, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, then Bengal's information and cultural affairs minister, had accompanied Basu during his London visit. They stayed at St James' Court and attended the formal dedication of Rabindranath Tagore's bust at Stratford-upon-Avon, the birthplace of William Shakespeare.

Two, the property is part of the Taj Hotel chain, which Mamata has consciously avoided since 2006, when she began her agitation against Tata Motors' proposed small-car plant in Singur.

It could not be confirmed whether Mamata knew about the hotel's Basu and Bhattacharjee connections but sources at Nabanna said she was aware of the Tata ownership.

"She did not express any reservations after learning about the Tata link.... She was booked there after she gave her approval," a source said.

St James’ Court in London, where Mamata will put up

While a one-off nod to a Tata hotel does not imply a change in Mamata's stand towards the group, she must be aware that the Mumbai-headquartered Tatas are an important player in Britain. The latest data show that five Tata group companies employ more than 65,000 people in the UK.

Tata Motors' pullout from Singur in 2008 because of Mamata's protests had created worldwide news. The chief minister, whose main purpose in London is to scout for investment, knows her state has an image problem.

Had she expressed reservations about a Tata hotel in the run-up to the visit - a year after her finance minister Amit Mitra had accused Ratan Tata of having "lost his mind" - it could have sent out a negative signal to British industry.

In fact, after Mamata had greeted the passengers and crew of the first flight of Vistara, the Tatas' new airline, at Bagdogra because of a coincidence in April, she had told an aide: "If, in the interests of Bengal, I need to go to Taj Bengal (the group's flagship hotel in Calcutta), I will do so."

Some of the Calcutta industrialists visiting London with Mamata told The Telegraph before they left for London that her public statements ahead of the trip reflected a dose of pragmatism.

"We started from negative.... I won't say I will achieve 100 per cent. Even if we can get 30 per cent, it will be a big achievement," the chief minister had said during an informal briefing on the trip on Thursday.

The facade of the hotel

The Opposition has questioned the rationale behind Mamata's London visit, which follows her mostly symbolic Singapore trip last August in search of investment. Against this backdrop, a 30 per cent target is not a bad idea, a Nabanna source said.

Not only is she trying to lower the expectations, the planning is better this time. Instead of focusing only on industrial investment, the trip has been planned keeping academic, health and cultural tie-ups in mind too," the official said. "Even if there are no substantial investments to show, she can always highlight the achievements on the other fronts."

The chief minister can also tell her Left critics that unlike a vacationing Basu, she had gone to London with a public agenda, accompanied by industrialists.

But the bigger question is whether the state would gain anything from her maiden trip to a country Indian chief ministers love to visit.

Although Rajasthan's Vasundhara Raje cancelled her scheduled London trip this month following the Lalit Modi controversy, then Bihar chief minister Jitan Ram Manjhi had visited Britain last year. Odisha's Naveen Patnaik too was in London in May 2012 to scout for investment.

"Chief ministers and (other) ministers of Indian states have kept coming to London in the garb of looking for investors but I find the idea a bit absurd as investments do not translate from the roadshows where presentations are made. Investors want replies to their specific queries before taking any decision," said a former diplomat who was earlier posted in the Indian high commission in London.

A suite in the hotel

The Mamata government claims to have made business processes easier and speedier in Bengal but questions persist on law and order and land availability.

Offering the government land bank and promising law and order can evoke applause at chamber gatherings in Calcutta, but foreign investors would need specifics about the size and location of the land parcels and local infrastructure to be tempted.

"The most important factor in attracting foreign investments is the follow-up with (prospective) investors," a senior official from an apex business chamber said.

"One roadshow can at best familiarise the investors with the state. The hard work starts after that as officials need to pursue those who have shown interest."

Unlike the Singapore trip, which was chaperoned by the industry department, this visit is being handled by the micro, small and medium enterprises department.