Then chief minister Jyoti Basu once told an industrialist that capitalists were class enemies and he should expect no sympathy.
Getting the first tyres out from the Sahaganj plant will still require a lot of effort, but with the state government on its side, the hopes are high.
The Marxists are heading for their worst debacle in many elections. How will May 16, 2014 affect India's Communists? T V R Shenoy surveys the landscape.