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| Mamata, CPM heat on land, railways in LS | |
| BS Reporter / New Delhi July 08, 2009, 0:37 IST | |
The row between the CPI(M) and its arch rival, the Trinamool Congress (TC), over land refuses to die. After the land acquisition issue played a crucial role in the 2009 Lok Sabha polls in West Bengal, it became a hot topic again today, as the CPI(M) and the TC locked horns during the Railway Budget discussion in the Lok Sabha.
Basudeb Acharia, CPI(M) floor leader and also former chairman of Parliament’s standing committee on railways, tried to corner the railway minister and TC boss Mamata Banerjee on the proposed dedicated East-West freight corridor from Ludhiana to Kolkata. “It will require at least 30,000 acres to build the corridor. It will require agricultural land. Where will your Maa-Mati-Manush (mother, land, human beings) policy be?” Acharia questioned during the debate, referring to Banerjee’s popular slogan signaling her political priorities.
This prompted Banerjee — who was earlier doodling flowers on blank sheets of paper as Acharia delivered his speech — to promptly reply, “We are not going to acquire land forcibly. Railway line doesn’t require huge land in one particular area. Only a small stretch of land is needed to build railway lines. It will not be like your Nandigram or Singur.”
Banerjee also denied the CPI(M)’s charge that “core activity of the Railways will be handed over to the private sector”, under the plan to make “world class stations” under the PPP mode. “This is absolutely wrong. The Railways will continue to manage the services in these stations,” Banerjee said. Earlier, she also clarified that no railway land would be handed over to the private sector for commercial developments. “Private sector help will only be taken to build the commercial complexes,” she replied to JD(U) MP Rajiv Ranjan Singh.
Banerjee has announced setting up of a 1,000 Mw power plant at Adra in Acharia’s district of Bankura. Although Acharia supported the project and assured full help in acquiring the land, he wondered how the Railways would get the land. “For this power plant, 1,000 acres of land is required. I have enquired and found that the Railway only has 300 acres. Moreover, it has to cut thousands of trees to build the plant,” Acharia said.
Contrary to the situation during the previous UPA regime where Banerjee was the sole member of her party in the Lok Sabha, now the TC has 19 members and is the biggest ally of the Congress. So Home Minister P Chidambaram too jumped into action and questioned Acharia, “Do you want the project in your area or not ?”
After Banerjee announced major sops for Bengal in her Budget, the CPI(M) today tried to claim credit for many of the projects. Acharia, the former railway standing committee chief, said the proposal to set up an EMU and MEMU factory at Howrah was originally his committee’s proposal. But the Left parties also raised concern about deteriorating track conditions and lack of modern signaling systems all over the country.
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