Buddha rejects dinner invite

Kept away by Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee from the foundation stone-laying function of the Joka-BBD Bagh Metro Rail project in Kolkata.

Kept away by Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee from the foundation stone-laying function of the Joka-BBD Bagh Metro Rail project in Kolkata on Wednesday President Pratibha Patil attended the event Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee got back by turning down an invite for a dinner for the President at Raj Bhavan.

State Finance Minister Asim Dasgupta will fill in for the Chief Minister at the dinner,but at the Metro function,no minister or the ruling CPM leader represented him. Not even an official of the state government was present at the ceremony,which,besides Patil and Mamata,was attended by Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee,the six Trinamool ministers in the Union Cabinet,Governor M K Narayanan and Kolkata Mayor Shovon Chatterjee.

When asked why the Chief Minister did not attend the ceremony,Dasgupta got visibly angry. You ask the Railway Minister about this, he shouted.

Mamata,meanwhile,seemed unfazed by the criticism for not inviting the Chief Minister to the function. In her speech,she did not once mention the state governments help in implementing the Rs 2,619 crore project.

Rubbing salt into the CPMs wounds,Mamata said,People gave their land willingly for the project. We did not take any land forcibly, in an apparent reference to problems faced by the Left Front government in acquiring land in Singur and elsewhere.

In another dig at the Bhattacharjee government,Mamata said,Where there is a will,there is a way8230; When there is no will,there is a survey, she said,quoting former railway minister Madhu Dandavate,When there is a will there is a railway.

The President was all praise for Mamata and termed her leadership of the Railways as dynamic. I would like to compliment the Railways who under the dynamic leadership of Mamataji have today undertaken this significant initiative, Patil said.

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Mamata announced that six stations on the new Metro route would be named after legendary singers Mohammad Rafi,Kishore Kumar and Mohini Mohan Choudhury,football legend Gostha Pal,poet Allama Iqbal and the 10th Sikh Guru Guru Gobind Singh.

With PTI inputs