Smriti Irani inaugurates metro project in Kolkata, Trinamool stays away claiming BJP snubbed CM

The power tussle between the Centre, with Bharatiya Janata Party as the ruling government, and the state government, run by the Trinamool Congress, has only intensified over time. In West Bengal, with the BJP being in the Opposition, the political difference is that much starker. On Monday, this political discord was publicly evident, when an important extension of the Kolkata metro line was inaugurated by Smriti Irani, the Union Minister of Women & Child Development, and Minority Affairs, but the Trinamool leadership gave the event a miss.

Irani launched a new station and inaugurated the partially operational, partially under-construction 2.33 km extension of Kolkata’s East-West Metro on Monday. The Trinamool Congress claimed that the BJP deliberately snubbed Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee by not inviting her to the function.

On Monday morning, Trinamool spokesperson Kunal Ghosh blamed the BJP for playing politics. He said that the invitation card was sent to Banerjee on Sunday night. Ghosh claimed that this metro project happened at Banerjee’s initiative, who used to be union railways minister. He also alleged that the same treatment was meted out to the mayor.

What irked the Trinamool further was that the card didn’t have the chief minister’s name—even though the names of the local Member of Parliament and Member of the Legislative Assembly (both representing the Trinamool) were printed on it.

However, the two stayed away from Monday's programme.

Trinamool leader and city mayor Firhad Hakim said it was an insult to invite the chief minister without putting her name on the invitation card. According to him, public representatives must be respected for public work, and with Banerjee being elected as a representative of the people of Bengal, omitting her name was an insult to them.

Congress MP Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, a former minister of state for railways, said by railways’ protocol and by convention, if a project was to be inaugurated, the railways minister was expected to be at the venue.

The Left leadership reminded that it would have been good had the chief minister been invited, but the Trinamool had no right to raise such an issue. Banerjee, when she was a central minister, had kept the-then Left government in the state out of loop from such public functions, the Left claimed.

Speaking at the function, Irani asserted that it was Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s dream of developing an all-round infrastructure, and how the new stretch was part of the bigger vision. She narrated how a woman with a child waved at her to stop and the minister did. The woman requested that her greetings be conveyed to the prime minister. Irani also mentioned how the people of the state were receiving benefits from the central government through different schemes.