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ShareNew Delhi: Mamata Banerjee made a quiet entrance into the Lok Sabha on Friday, at 10 minutes to noon, to present the railway budget 2009-10. She was a little earlier than expected. Also, the car in which she came was her own Maruti Zen. Once in the house, she slid into the last row, next to Deepa Dasmunsi, wife of former minister Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi.
No fuss, no ceremony for Banerjee.
Her unremarkable arrival was in stark contrast to her predecessor Lalu Prasad, who liked to make an entrance accompanied by his ministerial entourage of Jay Prakash Narayan Yadav and Prem Chand Gupta.
Clad in a simple handloom sari, the Union railway minister pulled out a populist budget from her cloth jhola.
Her speech was to the point, delivered in a mix of fractured Hindi and English. There were the 'a-ha' moments when she quoted Rabindranath Tagore upfront, "Where the mind is led forward by Thee, into ever-widening thought and action/Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake." Another flourish appeared a little later, with 'Bhanwar se lado, Tum lehron se uljho, Kahan tak chaloge, Kinare kinare'. She ended her speech with an Urdu couplet: Roshni chaand se hoti hai sitaron se nahin, Kamyabi manvikta se hoti hai, zulm se nahin.
Compare that with Lalu, who liked to quote from Hindi film songs, taunt rivals and cajole allies.
Not given to coy behaviour of any sort, Banerjee shushed the naysayers with characteristic abrasiveness. When a Left parliamentarian complained of neglect of areas where the Left holds sway, she said, "Will you just let me read? It is your turn to listen."
And listen everyone did, to her taunts directed at those who only harped on economic viability (read Lalu Prasad) to talk of social viability.Of course, charm reared its dulcet head every now and then, like when she asked the speaker if she could have a glass of water. "Bahut bolna pad raha hai na," she said. At the end of the speech, though, there was no doubt that Didi had brought 'Maa Maati Manush' (mother, land and people), her party's slogan, to the Lok Sabha.
