Braving the constraints of his high office, Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee on Friday made a forceful, albeit veiled, attack on the critics of the Tatas’car project.

“Economic development cannot be subjected to political muscle flexing,” Chatterjee said while delivering the J R D Tata Memorial lecture organised by Assocham. “Socio-economic uplift of India’s masses,” he said, “should not be a matter of theoretical political ideology or political rhetoric.”

Chatterjee, who dwelt on “economic development and political consensus building,” said, “What is happening today in some states of our country for the presumed benefits of some sections of the people, is essentially destructive of the concept and the need for sustained and balanced development of the country and are manifestations of the worst form of confrontational politics, which will only take the country back to the days of economic stagnation.”

The Speaker did not name Trinamool leader Mamata Banerjee and her fellow-travellers, but said: “We have to be watchful of those sections in society that are out to distract people from the path of development. In pursuing narrow political agenda, not only do such elements undermine the well-conceived and important schemes of development, but hurt the long-term interest of the same people whom they pretend to be helping.”

In the absence of a clear majority for any party at the national and state levels, unprincipled alliances have been made to form coalition governments, he added.