PM and FM decline to instantly clear 24 of her pet projects.
Mamata Banerjee, the mercurial Union minister of railways, sent a cabinet committee meeting into a tizzy on Thursday when she burst into tears on being denied what she wanted. She was consoled by Kumari Selja, minister for housing and urban poverty alleviation, and also minister for heavy industry Vilasrao Deshmukh.
What she wanted was immediate clearance for 24 new projects at a meeting of the cabinet committee on infrastructure, but finance minister Pranab Mukherjee and prime minister Manmohan Singh turned down her request to include her proposals in the budget at this late stage.
According to a senior government functionary, the 24 projects included 10 relating to her home state of West Bengal. The committee, headed by Manmohan Singh, clears all infrastructure-related projects.
During the meeting, Banerjee reportedly brought up her projects suddenly, and demanded they be cleared quickly so that they could be included in the budget to be presented on February 26. Her insistence surprised and even incensed Pranab. He told her what she was demanding was not possible. They could not okay projects that had not been processed and appraised by the Planning Commission.
The finance minister made it clear that the government could not be expected to make monetary provisions for projects at this late stage, when the budget was almost frozen. Mamata Banerjee, however, remained adamant.
At this stage, Mukherjee threw the ball in the prime minister’s court. He said he would try to include it in the budget if the prime minister could find the money for it. But Manmohan Singh pleaded helplessness in allocating funds and urged her to raise the money herself.
When it became evident that both the prime minister and the finance minister were in no mood to oblige her, Banerjee became emotional and, at one stage, even burst into tears, leaving everybody stunned. Seeing her state, housing and urban poverty alleviation minister Kumari Selja rushed to her side and tried to console her. Vilasrao Deshmukh, the ministry of heavy industry, also did the same.
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