New Delhi, July 3: Between the budget speech and a flight to Calcutta at 8.10pm, Mamata Banerjee calls a few journalists for an evening cup of tea in her office.

While the reporters wait, she deals with a scrum of television crews in an adjoining room.

The clock keeps ticking. Mamata could miss her flight or the journalists their chat.

Then suddenly, she bursts in. “Oof, I never knew there were so many channels.”

She plonks her jhola in which she had carried her speech to Parliament. “See if you can get another flight for tomorrow morning,” the minister tells her aide. “Get us tea,” she asks someone else. “You did a great job with the TV crews,” she tells her press adviser.

Mamata has been fasting all day, she nibbles at a biscuit as she lapses into her mother tongue after a day of speeches and news conferences in English and Hindi.

“Everybody hailed our budget... Soniaji, PM, Pranabda. I don’t know why people are upset about Mumbai suburban trains. That’s no longer under the railways… it’s a misunderstanding. It was hived off to a separate urban body,” she says with a smile, followed by a frown.

She beams again and points out she has given trains to Orissa and Kerala, two states which always complained they did not get enough attention from any railway minister, given all MPs the right to decide where they would have a reservation counter in their constituencies. “The Northeastern MP who wanted trains... did he get them? I have given more trains to the Northeast than ever before.”

Party colleague Mukul Roy tells her the finance minister is on the line. She gets up and moves into an ante-room.

When she returns, someone asks about Duranto, the high-speed trains. “We took that initiative after a lot of thought. Poor people, students etc can avail of them at a far lower price than the Raj-dhanis.”

The CPM has called it an election budget. “Oder katha baad din to (forget what they say),” she shoots back.

“The budget is really all about giving the railways a human face.... The Rs 25-pass will allow people to move from Calcutta to Midnapore, from Calcutta to Durgapur, for instance. It’s all about empowering small businessmen, ordinary people. We are looking at setting up nursing and medical colleges attached to our hospitals. Private partners will build it.... Railway employees’ sons and daughters will get preference in studying there.”

“The freight corridor from Ludhiana to Dankuni will have industrial enclaves... there will be jobs. Look at the number of factories we are planning. It’s a lot of work.”

Her aide comes back. The next morning’s flight is at an unearthly hour. She has to leave early. Someone has a last question. “Achchha, shoot,” she says as her aides look at their watches.