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ShareNew Delhi: Incensed with then railway minister Ram Vilas Paswan's alleged neglect of West Bengal, Mamata Banerjee had thrown her shawl at him in the middle of his budget speech in February 1997.
Twelve years on, she got her own back by announcing a virtual cornucopia of goodies for the state, which goes to polls in 2011.
Banerjee announced 18 trains, promised a government takeover of the sick Burns Standard and Braithwaite wagon manufacturing factory, a new wagon unit in Majerhat and an EMU/ MEMU unit in Kach-rapara. If this was not enough, she announced an electronic locomotive component factory in Dankuni and a 1000 MW power station in Adra, near the Maoist-hit area of Lalgarh.
She promised a new line in Lalgarh, along with Singur and Nandigram, places that have become synonymous with her political resurrection in the state.
"Even if all railway ministers after this ignore West Bengal for 20 years, we will still be replete," said a Congress parliamentarian from the state after Banerjee's railway budget speech.
A new medical college, a nursing school, five multi-functional complexes and three world class stations are on the anvil.
But if Bengal received the lion's share of the goodies, Banerjee was also politically correct with senior UPA ally, the Congress.
UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi's constituency Rae Bareli, which got two lines, featured on the list of 'adarsh' stations along with Amethi, the constituency of the Congress chief's son and party general secretary Rahul Gandhi.
Banerjee is clearly out to win the next assembly polls in Bengal, and is not afraid to show it.
When CPI(M) leader Basudeb Acharia said Banerjee's budget was full of tall claims, she shot back: "In the last five years he [Acharia] was chairman of the standing committee on railways. Only one new train was announced for West Bengal [in that period]; he should answer that charge first."
If Banerjee wins the 2011 assembly polls in her state, she will quit as railway minister. Considering this, thegoodies announced for Bengal appears less hasty and more politically prescient.
