Mamata Banerjee speaking at the Bengal Global Business Summit.
Last time the biggest guests at Mamata Banerjee's Bengal Global Business Summit were four from ministers from the Narendra Modi government. Assembly Elections were just four months away, but Arun Jaitley, Nitin Gadkari, Suresh Prabhu, Piyush Goel promised Bengal a bonanza.
This time, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley did not attend the summit, even though his name was number four on the invitation card to the opening session, after President Pranab Mukherjee, Governor Kesari Nath Tripathi and Mamata Banerjee, Chief Minister of West Bengal.
Given the head-on confrontation between Mamata Banerjee and PM Narendra Modi on demonetisation, no one is surprised at the turn of events.
However, the star of the show, President Pranab Mukherjee fully backed his host's bid to woo business to Bengal and sent out a message to her and to the missing guest, Arun Jaitley.
"When I was sent the invitation to attend the meet, I thought whether it will be proper to do that as President of the republic. But I felt that as India has cooperative federalism, it lays on the strength of every state. India's strength lies in cooperative federalism especially when it comes to economic development," he said.
Business delegations came in from 29 countries, 350 of them from Germany, South Korea, Poland and from across India.
"As businessmen I am disappointed. Last year Mr Jaitley had said India's progress depends on the states progress all together," said Rajeev Kaul, NICCO chairman.
Ex CII Chief (East) Ambareesh Dasgupta added "We are focusing on those who came and not those you could not. Mr Jaitley must have had his reasons. "
"We are facing hardship because of demonetisation and remonetisation. Come to Bengal. We are giving relief to industry," said Ms Banerjee.
Another little bump was a wildcat protest outside the venue on Bhangar, where two people were shot dead on Tuesday during protests over alleged land grab.
The state government has staunchly denied that the clash was over land-grab. There were barely a hundred people at the protest, but due to the emotive issue, the chief minister was not pleased. But the state BJP was, not just about the Bhangar protest by the Left but also because they had urged party top brass to skip the summit. And they had been heard.