Blue and red

What Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said at the inauguration of Bandhan Bank in West Bengal would definitely be music to Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's ears. Referring to the new bank's billboards in blue and white - which, incidentally, are Banerjee's favourite colours - that have sprung up across Kolkata, he said, there was "a pleasant change" in the city. When he had visited the city during his younger years, he said, it was painted red, alluding to the colour that symbolised the earlier communist regime. "When it was painted red, new institutions were not being born; existing ones were shifting out," he added, lending credence to the theory that leaders of the two parties, the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Trinamool Congress, were looking to bury the hatchet.