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| Mamata's renamed train chugs into CPI(M) protests |
| Saubhadro Chatterji / New Delhi Sep 20, 2009, 00:57 IST |
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Party complains to PM accusing her of dishonouring martyrs.
 Railway Minister and Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee's latest tussle with the CPI(M) is over the name of a train.
An angry CPI(M) shot off a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Friday to protest against Banerjee's decision to change the name of ‘Pratham Swatantrata Sangram Express’ to ‘Sipahi Express’.
The letter by the CPI(M) leader in the Lok Sabha, Basudeb Acharia, to the prime minister alleges that “...the changed name amounts to dishonouring the martyrs who laid down their lives for the war of independence”.
The CPI(M) is already politically cornered in West Bengal after a series of electoral battles against the Congress-Trinamool Congress combine.
Now, after Mamata Banerjee has taken over as the railway minister, the Left Front feel sidelined even on the railways’ tracks of development and popular measures.
In 2007, when the Congress-led UPA government was dependent on the Left's outside support, it was the Left's initiative that resulted in then railway minister Lalu Prasad giving the Front an out-of-turn new train on August 23 between Barrackpore and Jhansi.
The train had stops at all the places associated with India’s freedom movement on the route.
Soon after Banerjee took over as the railway minister, she extended this train to Chitpore station. At the same time, she gave a new name ‘Sipahi Express’ to showcase it as a new train.
While West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee criticised Banerjee for “...releasing a new train in the market everyday”, Acharia wrote to the PM directly. Acharia is a prominent member of the CPI(M)’s Central Committee.
When asked why he didn't write a protest letter to the railway minister, Acharia replied: “I’ve written at least 15 letters so far to her. I have not got a single reply to any of those letters.” The CPI(M) leader also objected to Banerjee arbitrarily changing a name that was announced on the floor of Parliament.
“Lalu Prasad had announced the introduction of the Gadar Express. But after considering the objections raised by MPs in the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha as well as to honour the martyrs of the first independence war, then minister of railways, on the floor of the House, announced he was changing the name from Gadar Express to Pratham Swatantrata Sangram Express,” he wrote.
“You should appreciate the name of the train which was announced on the floor of the House. It should not have been changed without taking the Parliament into confidence,” Acharia wrote to the PM.
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