Calcutta, Feb. 24: For a railway minister, it’s not new to allot trains to his or her own state. But Mamata Banerjee has gone a step further.

She has used the railway budget to subserve her immediate political aim of winning the final battle against the CPM in 2011. Her budget does it in two ways: countering the CPM campaign against her on major policy issues of privatisation, land acquisition and industrialisation as well as by winning her a new-found electoral constituency, minorities.

While placing the railway budget in Parliament today, Mamata made it clear she would not go for privatisation, countering the CPM’s consistent campaign against her on this score. “We are not going for privatisation of the railways. It will remain a government organisation,” she said.

In an article in CPM mouthpiece Ganashakti today, MP and former railway standing committee chairman Basudev Acharya accused Mamata of inviting corporate giants to outsource “all railway jobs”. “All railway jobs like construction of lines, conversion of broad-gauge lines into to meter-gauge ones and laying of double lines are being privatised.”

Told about Mamata’s announcement against privatisation in today’s budget, Acharya reacted sharply: “It was all an eyewash to keep her image intact with a slew of elections round the corner in Bengal. What does she have to say about the private-public partnership from construction of new railway lines to auto hubs and ancillary industries?”

However, a railway official explained that the PPP mode did not involve privatisation. “As part of the proposed PPP mode, the railways will join hands with investors and business communities but the ownership will lie with the government. The business communities will only get a share of the revenue.”

Mamata also dismissed the CPM’s campaign against her for grabbing land by iterating that “there will be no forcible acquisition” for railway projects. She suggested that the railways “will negotiate with landowners and, if required, different options will be explored, including overhead alignment, so that there is minimum inconvenience to the people”.

State CPM secretariat member Benoy Konar said: “She (Mamata) has become a butt of ridicule by asserting that there would be no forcible land acquisition for railway projects. Nobody will give her land simply because she can only make promises but never bother to fulfil them. She will have to acquire land for projects.”

The railway minister also expressed her willingness to set up a coach factory in Singur following a request from the state government but with a rider. “The ministry of railways has conveyed its willingness (to set up a coach factory on the abandoned Tata Motors project site), provided the state government hands over the requisite land… after returning 400 acres… to the unwilling farmers.”

By iterating that 400 acres had to be first returned, Mamata wanted to send a message to the CPM that she remained committed to her stand against “forcible acquisition” for the now-abandoned Tata pro-ject. Her prolonged agitation on the issue in 2007 and 2008 has helped her trounce the CPM in successive elections.

It is obvious that the coach factory will never come up in Singur because the government is not going to return the 400 acres. “There is no provision under which land that has already been acquired can be returned,” a state official said.

Mamata’s announcement to set up a string of factories across Bengal is an attempt to establish a pro-industry image to negate the CPM campaign branding her anti-industry.

Finally, her move to rename Ballygunge and Chandni Chowk stations, apparently to consolidate her support among Muslims. “It’s a poll stunt,” said Syed Mohammad Masih, the Left’s chief whip in the Bengal Assembly.