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Journalism of Courage
How long will govt defend the sabotage that TMCs strategies are amounting to?
West Bengal Chief Minister and difficult UPA ally Mamata Banerjee has forced the Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority Bill to be shelved even without a discussion. She has achieved this by the simple expedient of making Railway Minister Mukul Roy vanish from a cabinet meeting. Earlier,she had cast a shadow over the prime ministers crucial visit to Bangladesh by making herself unavailable at the last moment. What made it particularly embarrassing was that the agenda included important issues that have been stuck in the pipeline for far too long,such as the Teesta water-sharing agreement and the exchange of enclaves. And,most outrageously,Banerjee had replaced her nominee,railways minister Dinesh Trivedi,with Mukul Roy in order to roll back the rail budget.
Stonewalling is bad enough. But worse,Banerjee puts up the wall suddenly,at the very last moment. Unlike her opposition to fuel price hikes and FDI in retail,which she discussed in advance to build a consensus with other chief ministers,these moves are clearly designed to embarrass the government in which Banerjee is a partner,both domestically and in international fora. The pension bill was scuppered just when the government was trying to get its act together and respond to mounting criticism of policy paralysis by restarting the reform process. It is time the Congress drew the line and called Banerjees bluff. It wont be easy to change partners at this stage,but it should at least threaten divorce before Banerjee damages its image beyond repair.
