Did Mamta know of fare hike?

Former Railway Minister Dinesh Trivedi is not going to give up his revolt against his party leadership, especially Mamata Banerjee. In a conversation with DNA on Tuesday evening, he said that a fortnight before presenting the budget, he himself handed over a sheaf of papers containing his budget proposals to a key official in the West Bengal chief minister’s set-up and had been told that those had been duly handed over to Banerjee.

“It is impossible that the Trinamool Congress leaders didn’t know of the plans. I had not received any objection to my budget. Now my leader says that she hadn’t even been aware of the freight hike, let alone the passenger fare increase. I’m a victim of a very unreasonable Trinamool political game. They first let me hike the fares and then they fell back on populism and threw me out from the party. It is most unfair,” Trivedi said.

It is more  than apparent that Trivedi along with another rebel MP Kabir Sumon would continue to be a headache for the Trinamool. Trivedi recalled, “Mamata Banerjee had just returned from Darjeeling. That day she had participated in a procession in Jadavpur. I met the official closest to her, Gautam Sanyal, and gave him the papers. She had to everything much before the budget was placed.”

Sanyal used to be the Officer on Special Duty at Rail Bhavan in Delhi helping Mamata out. Undoubtedly, he is aware of the workings of railway ministry. Trivedi continued saying that he had been victim of “a typical Trinamool political game”. He had been led to believe that his leader had nothing against the budget and then severely criticised for the budget because his party wanted to flaunt its pro-poor credentials.