Planks: rail woes & ‘inactive’ Govinda

Out of Parliament for five years,former Union minister Ram Naik will eye a reentry on two poll planks: the woes of suburban railway commuters and the non-performance of sitting MP Govinda. Naik,BJP candidate from Mumbai North,said the commuters’ problems would be a key poll plank; the constituency had seen an agitation by commuters in Borivali.

Naik said he,as a minister,had set up the Mumbai Rail Vikas Corporation that set on track 17 projects,of which only one had been completed though they “should have been completed two years ago”. “The Congress MP has not done anything. There is a public sentiment that Railway Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav has meted out step-motherly treatment (to Mumbai) as (Railway) Minister,” said Naik,who had taken up the Borivali issues with the railway authorities. He said the railway infrastructure had not kept pace with the growth of the constituency that now has several new segments.

Naik said Govinda had not gone to his voters even during crisis situations like the deluge and the serial train blasts; hence they would vote him (Naik) to power as he was active in public life even when he was not in power. Naik lost the assembly poll by 48,000 votes and he said 46,000 of these had come from Vasai,“the pocket borough of Govinda aide Hitendra Thakur”,but Vasai is no longer part of Mumbai North.

The MNS is set to put up a candidate but Naik is unfazed,saying MNS activists had worked for him during their days in the Shiv Sena,and voters always choose “candidates likely to win or those ones who they feel should win.”