The Trinamool Congress on Saturday poked holes in Narendra Modi’s pitch to take credit for the Chenab Rail Bridge, which the Prime Minister inaugurated a day ago.

“History needs to be put out to keep someone’s ego off track,” said Trinamool’s Rajya Sabha leader Derek O’Brien, who chaired a passenger amenities committee, when Mamata Banerjee was the railway minister.

The Trinamul credited the Bengal chief minister as the moving force behind the Chenab Rail Bridge who brought new life to it.

O’Brien reminded Mamata had presented the Vision 2020 document for the Indian Railways to the Parliament in 2009.

A part of the railway budget document from 2009 that Mamata had read as Railway minister in the Parliament, states: “Madam, the new rail line from Anantnag to Baramulla in Kashmir Valley has already been completed. Further, Quazigund-Anantnag line will be completed by August 2009 and will be inaugurated soon. The work on the J&K project has got a setback as difficulties have been faced on part of the line from Udhampur-Katra and Katra-Quazigund.”

“The alignment on Katra-Quazigund section has been under review and an expert committee appointed to study the issues involved has recently submitted its report. Madam, my foremost concern is the safety of the passengers. Therefore the decision in this project has to be made very carefully. I will review the matter soon and how quickly this section of the national project can be taken up for completion,” the Railway budget speech reads.

In the 2009 Railway Budget, Mamata had allotted an additional Rs. 1,949 crore for the Udhampur-Srinagar-Baramulla section.

The Chenab Bridge, where Modi waved the national flag on Friday, was announced in the following year’s railway budget as the New Line Project.

Located between Kauri and Bakkal in the Reasi district, the bridge forms a crucial link in the Udhampur-Srinagar-Baramulla Rail Link.

“That Narendra Modi waved the flag at inauguration of Chenab Rail Bridge without a word for the hardworking public servants who came before him – PMs Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh and most importantly railway minister, Mamata Banerjee, who actually sanctioned and laid the groundwork for the project, is so typically Modi- delusional, narcissistic, self-promoting, non-serious,” wrote Sagarika Ghose, Trinamool’s Rajya Sabha MP on X. “This kind of jealous credit grabbing is unprecedented in India. Most unfortunate.”

Ghose also shared a photograph of Mamata with then prime minister late Manmohan Singh, UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi and the Abdullahs, Farooque and present chief minister Omar on the dais.

Manmohan Singh had inaugurated the 53 km rail link between Jammu and Udhampur on April 13, 2005 in the first year of UPA-I. On October 11, 2008, another 66 km rail link between Anantnag and Mazhom, outside Srinagar, was inaugurated by Singh.

In the third phase on February 14, 2009 a 31 km rail link between Mazhom and Baramulla was inaugurated. The 18 km rail link between Anantnag and Qazigund was inaugurated on October 29, 2009 where Mamata was present.

The railway link between Qazigund to Banihal was inaugurated by Singh on June 26, 2013, his last year as a two-term Prime Minister.

The Congress leader Jairam Ramesh had also reminded Modi of the contribution of his predecessors towards the showcase project.

“This railway project was sanctioned in 1995 when Narasimha Rao was the Prime Minister. In 2002, Atal Bihari Vajpayee declared it a national project,” Ramesh said on Friday. “If the 272-kilometre stretch between Udhampur, Srinagar and Baramulla, 160 km was already inaugurated before 2014. It’s not like Modi came, gave the contract, and the work started.”

Trinamool MP Ghose also mentioned the name of the late Vajpayee, the first prime minister from the BJP. Mamata had served as railway minister under both Vajpayee and Singh.

“The Chennai Rail Bridge shows the continuity of government. Vajpayee declared it a ‘project of national importance’ and it was Mamata Banerjee as Railway Minister who sanctioned the project and as Railway Minister in the Manmohan Singh government put the project on track by setting up two industrial projects – a bridge factory in J&K and an Institute of tunnel and bridge engineering in Jammu,” Ghose wrote. “India’s path to progress did not start in 2014. Headline management is not the same as ground reality. Some work quietly without self-promotion, others are quick to grab the photo ops.”