To make the seminar successful, the college administration went into an overdrive and even suspended all the classes.

Commerce and Industries Minister Nirupam Sen, who was the key speaker at the seminar — “Is the balance between man and nature reached its end?” — made all attempts to “dispel any misgivings” of the project by terming Nayachar as the “ideal place’ to set up the petrochemical plant. His contention: absence of human settlement in the area and it’s proximity to the sea.

Without naming the Trinamool Congress, which is opposing the project on the grounds of environment safety, Sen threw a direct proposition to the students occupying the audience gallery of the Meghnad Saha Auditorium.

“One group of people is opposing the chemical hub at Nayachar. Now it is for you people to decide what is right or wrong,” said Sen.

He gave the example of Jurong Island in Singapore where a similar chemical hub has been set up and added that his government was trying to develop the Nayachar project on similar lines.

After having burnt its finger on the issue of setting up a chemical hub at Nandigram and Tata Motors’ factory at Singur that catapulted Trinamool to its biggest ever electoral victory in the last Lok Sabha elections, the state government this time doesn’t want to further distance away itself from students and intellectuals who once were a strong votary of the Left Front.