Mamata rides populist wave on rail bifurcation

After over an year of the humiliating defeat in the polls, the Trinamool Congress leader Mamata Banerjee seems to have successfully raked up an issue - the bifurcation of the Indian railways.

Having sensed the potentially emotive nature of the issue, Mamata has launched a movement that political circles say, if steered properly, may get her back some of the lost ground.

The headquarters of the Eastern Railway and South Eastern Railway both of which are located in Kolkata are to be split up according to the railway minister's plans and a number of new zonal headquarters are to be created including one in Hajipur in Bihar, the home state of the present railway minister.

Ironically, however, Mamata's battle this time is against her own coalition partners - the Samata Party and also the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) that leads the federal government.

For the past few days Mamata's cadres in Kolkata have been holding protest rallies. On Saturday they blocked trains on virtually all the sections as a symbolic protest against the proposed move. But Mamata threatens that the demonstrations, so far peaceful in nature, would assume a virulent form should the prime minister agree to the railway minister's proposal.

The creation of new zonal headquarters, after having split the existing ones, would certainly reduce west Bengal's prestige and importance in the all India context.

Mamata, meanwhile, has reacted to this with some of her old rhetoric: "State first, ministry later," implying that the Trinamool Congress would rather keep on hold its re-entry into the NDA cabinet than sacrifice the interest of the state.

The ruling Leftists in West Bengal have been quick to gauge the popular sentiment and are doing everything to hijack the issue from Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress. First, Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, the state chief minister, rushed to Delhi to have a round of discussion with the Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani and opposed the move.

Subsequently, an all party delegation of Bengal MLAs went to Delhi to lodge their protest. The Bihar MLAs followed suit arguing their case.