Bhubaneswar, March 11: Mamata Banerjee was today dubbed Orissa’s “enemy” as members across party lines demanded that the Assembly pass a motion condemning the railway minister for ignoring the state in her budget.

“She is an enemy of Orissa,” railed Ananta Das of the ruling Biju Janata Dal (BJD) as his senior colleague Pradeep Maharathy sought a motion to condemn Mamata.

The demand was supported by the Congress’s Santosh Singh Saluja, whose party is an ally of Mamata’s Trinamul Congress in Delhi and in Bengal.

The issue was raised during zero hour, with members of the BJP and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) echoing the sentiment.

The BJD’s Kalpataru Das complained that Mamata was favouring only Bengal and Bihar, and pointed out that no new railway line had been sanctioned for the tribal-dominated backward regions of Orissa in the budget.

Maharathy rushed to the well of the House demanding a decision on the motion to criticise Mamata, but Speaker Paradip Kumar Amat said he would discuss the matter with the leaders of various parties later.

Maharathy said Orissa was ignored in the budget, though the railways earned a large share of their revenues from the state. His colleague Pravat Tripathy said the state government had demanded an allocation of Rs 1,805 crore for rail projects in the state but had got only Rs 836 crore. Even the allocated funds were not being spent: of the Rs 715 crore provided in the previous rail budget, only Rs 635 crore had been used.

Although an Assembly committee, headed by the Speaker, had sought an appointment with the Prime Minister and railway minister before the rail budget, it was not given one, NCP leader Amar Prasad Satpathy said. “This clearly shows the apathetic attitude of the UPA government towards Orissa,” he added.

BJP legislature party leader and former minister K.V. Singhdeo suggested that a fresh appointment be sought with the Prime Minister and the railway minister to convey the feelings of the House and the people of Orissa.

Congress chief whip Prasad Harichandan said Orissa had been neglected by successive central governments, but claimed funds allocated to state projects in rail budgets had been higher during the UPA regime than during the NDA rule.