Patna, July 3: Contrary to his ally, the BJP, which slammed Mamata Banerjee’s Rail Budget-2009, Nitish Kumar today described it as a “balanced budget” and used it to nail his rival and former railway minister Lalu Prasad.

“The new minister (Mamata Banerjee) has tried to present a balanced budget. I am happy that she would bring out a White Paper on the railways’ financial health that will expose the statistical jugglery and false claims of profit that her predecessor was responsible for,” said the Bihar chief minister.

Despite the BJP and a section of RJD stating that the new budget had “ignored” Bihar, Nitish Kumar said: “Mamataji has not withdrawn any of the Bihar railway projects announced in the past.”

“I have been a railway minister and my reaction is in keeping with the responsibility to which former and present railway ministers should adhere to.” Nitish Kumar pointed out that Mamata’s budget speech had made it clear that the railways did not have a cash surplus that Lalu Prasad boasted of.

Her speech has brought to the fore the point that the operating ratio of the Indian Railways was 92 per cent contrary to the 77 per cent that her predecessor had claimed.

“The White Paper on the railways’ financial health that Mamataji has promised will expose figures of the real profit and so-called turn around.”

Nitish, however, said that the budget speech was not clear about the “railway safety measures”.

He welcomed Mamata’s decision to reduce the time for Tatkal tickets from five days to two days and added: “It should, in fact, be reduced to a few hours to benefit the passengers who need to travel due to an emergency.”

Even as Mamata restored Lalu’s announcement of opening Patna-Jhajha AMU train and Patna-Ranchi Janshatabdi Express, the opposition leaders lashed out at the railway minister for ignoring Bihar.

“Nothing has been given to Bihar. Bihar has been thoroughly sidelined in railway budget 2009”, the BJP MP from Bhagalpur, Shah Nawaz Hussein said.