Businessmen back communists in West Bengal election

Chopra's business has grown 10 times in the last five years and he is now building shopping malls and housing complexes worth 3 billion rupees.

Elsewhere in India, where urban growth is spiralling, this would not have come as a big surprise.

But in Kolkata, the heart of the country's leftist citadel and home to the world's longest-serving elected communist government, it is seen as nothing short of a miracle.

The turnaround has come as the communist government of West Bengal, of which Kolkata is the capital, has proved to be an ally of the capitalists with its liberal economic policies.

The state votes on Thursday for a new provincial assembly in a staggered process ending early next month and the communists, bolstered by support from businessmen, are widely expected to win a seventh straight election since 1977.

"I am comfortable with this government and will support it," Chopra said, sitting in his office in a spanking new steel-and-glass building, in the heart of Kolkata, which also votes on Thursday.

"They have changed Kolkata's image of a dying city to one that is vibrant and a happening place to invest."

Businessmen like Chopra credit West Bengal's growth in the last five years to changed priorities of the communists, once known for promoting militant unionism and miles of red tape.

After years of pushing land reforms in the countryside in the late 1970s and 1980s, the communists changed tack.

They realised rural goodwill was a dwindling electoral asset and started hardselling the state as an investment destination, analysts said. The strategy seems to be working.