New Delhi, June 14 -- KOLKATA - The 997 acres of farmland at Singur, thirty miles northwest of Kolkata, have been empty since October 2008. The half-built factory that Tata Motors abandoned there still stands as a monument to what was, until last month, West Bengal's most consequential political act of the century. Mamata Banerjee built her career on chasing the Tatas out of Bengal. Now Suvendu Adhikari, the man who took her job, says he will bring them back.

Two weeks into his tenure as Bengal's first BJP chief minister, Adhikari used a press conference on Thursday to announce what amounts to a direct repudiation of the political movement that defined the state for nearly two decades. "We will bring back the Tatas in Bengal," he told re...