Mamata before presenting the railway budget. (Rajesh Kumar)

New Delhi, July 3: Smiling at the enemy, Mamata Banerjee today used her railway budget to salt the Left’s wounds with development promises for Lalgarh, Nandigram and Singur and benefits for the voters she is trying to steal from the Marxists.

Mamata promised a railway line to Lalgarh in keeping with her claims that development is the only way to wean Bengal’s poor tribals away from the Maoists.

“Lalgarh, Belpahari have been linked on the proposed Salboni-Jhargram route to connect extremely remote tribal areas,” she later told reporters after unveiling what was as much a thanksgiving budget for voters as a you-owe-me for the Bengal Assembly polls two years away.

If her intention was to show up the CPM for having let the remote, poverty-stricken block fall off its radar, she rubbed it in. Looking straight at CPM Lok Sabha leader Basudeb Acharya, seated two rows away, the railway minister smiled as she elaborated: “You know, Lalgarh... the place on the border between Bengal and Jharkhand….”

Acharya, who headed the just-dissolved House standing committee on railways, later said: “If she is so interested in the uplift of tribals, she could have also looked at other tribal areas (outside Bengal).”

Mamata also proposed a 1,000MW captive power plant in Adra, Purulia. “Adra is a tribal area. This project will help in providing employment and bringing the tribal people into the mainstream.”

The Adra project makes economic sense too since it is near the coal-bearing areas of Bengal and Jharkhand.

In a similar symbolic announcement, Mamata promised to build another line from Singur to Nandigram, sites of anti-Left movements that had paved the way for her triumphs in the 2008 panchayat polls and the recent Lok Sabha and municipal elections.

If those land protests, against the Tatas’ Nano factory and a proposed chemical hub, gave her an “anti-industry” image, she tried her best to limit the damage today.

She handed a sop to Bengal’s industry — a dedicated Calcutta-Ludhiana freight corridor that will come with industrial and cargo corridors set up on railway land. “We are setting up a committee to make a business plan for the industrial corridors. Railway land will be made available for industry,” Mamata said.

The offer of railway land is being seen by many, including the chambers of commerce that are being drafted as advisers on the project, as “a masterstroke to build industry in Bengal and rub away the stigma of being called anti-industry by the urban elite”.

Some of her promises, such as the new railway lines, will take years to meet but Mamata has just two years before the Assembly polls. Which is perhaps why she announced a mix of projects that can be finished within this period along with more visionary ones that may or may not take off after she leaves Rail Bhavan.

Among those “doable in a short period”, according to railway officials, are the plans to extend the Calcutta Metro to Barrackpore and Barasat, and the city’s circular railway from Majherhat to Diamond Harbour via Joka, from Dum Dum to Garia via Rajarhat and from Park Circus to Bantala. So are the schemes to turn the Howrah, Sealdah, New Jalpaiguri and Kolkata stations “world-class”.

Similarly, the cheap, non-stop Duranto trains that will run at Rajdhani speeds — she has gifted four of the 12 to Bengal — are to be introduced this year. “Many can’t afford Rajdhanis, they can (take) these trains at a far cheaper rate — 1500km at Rs 299 for a non-AC berth,” she said.

But it is the jobs her projects can bring to Bengal — she was criticised for costing the state thousands of jobs by driving the Nano away — that can win her many urban and semi-rural votes.

One key job-giver will be the coach factory announced at Kanchrapara-Halishahar, North 24-Parganas. She also plans to take over the wagon manufacturing units of Burn Standard and Braithwaite, a move that can save jobs in the Hooghly-Asansol industrial belt and entice workers to switch loyalties from the powerful CPM unions.

Mamata did not forget the farmers and Muslims, whom she has won over from the Left in large swathes of Bengal, and the ever-increasing youth vote bank.

She unveiled special trains that will carry fruits and vegetables to markets, and promised railway cold-storage facilities. The youths have got air-conditioned, sitting-only “Yuva” trains between metros at fares of Rs 299 up to 1,500km and Rs 399 up to 2,500km. Madarsa students are now eligible for the free students’ monthly passes.

Mamata quoted Tagore twice but ended her speech with an Urdu couplet as “today is Jumma”. “Kamyabi manvikta se hoti hai, zulm se nahi (success comes through humanity, not oppression),” she said, perhaps launching another barb at the CPM.

One other target was her predecessor as UPA railway minister, Lalu Prasad. Mamata accused him of setting “unrealistically high targets” for revenues in the interim budget and cut the projected receipts by Rs 4,800 crore citing “the shortfall in performance of the railways in 2008-09”.

She also promised a white paper on the railways’ organisational, operational and financial situation and performance since 2004.

Lalu Prasad said he was “not bothered” about the white paper and accused Mamata of suffering from a “complex”, asserting she had based her budget on his achievements.