(From left) Actors Jeet, Satabdi Roy, Debasree Roy and Rachana Banerjee at the Metro line inauguration. (Pradip Sanyal)

Calcutta, Aug. 22: Culture on Thursday, commerce on Friday and cinema on Saturday — with a dash of attendant melodrama.

Mamata Banerjee turned this evening’s inauguration of the Tollygunge-Garia Metro extension into a Tollywood show by playing the Uttam Kumar card. Few actors would have turned down an invite to the renaming of Tollygunge station after Bengali cinema’s iconic star.

The team included Prosenjit, Supriya Chowdhury, Jeet, Ranjit Mullick, Debasree Roy, Chiranjit and Rachana Banerjee apart from Trinamul MPs Tapas Pal and Satabdi Roy.

Some like Prosenjit chose their words with care while others, such as Chiranjit and Debasree, let the encomiums flow untrammelled.

“Uttam Kumar never got his due recognition. Thanks to Mamatadi, he got it today,” Debasree said.

“It needed a Joan of Arc to recognise the diamond called Uttam Kumar,” Chiranjit gushed.

Industry insiders did not waste the chance to speak of a “shift of political allegiance in Tollywood”.

“It’s there among the technicians as well. The film industry is dominated by people supporting the Left, but some have already started becoming vocal about their support for Mamata,” said a filmmaker who didn’t wish to be quoted.

With Mamata’s political star rising, the city’s industrialists too had shown a new-found interest in her yesterday — a day after the railway minister had basked in the bonhomie of writers and artists at the Science City auditorium.

Jeet said: “Didi works for the cause of humanity and I support her for that. I was there also because it (renaming of the station after Uttam Kumar) is a great honour for the film fraternity.”

Rachana said the entire film industry had been invited and she had gone to the inauguration as a member of the fraternity. “I don’t have any political ambitions. Mamata Banerjee has done a remarkable job and I wanted to acknowledge the fact that she supports the film industry,” she said.

Mamata played along by announcing two projects with a tinsel-town touch — the Tapan Sinha Metro Hospital at Chanditala and an indoor stadium named after Satyajit Ray at Behala.

“We have sanctioned a 75-bed hospital and work will start soon. If required, 75 more beds will be added on a public-private partnership basis,” she said.

Mamata threw a sop at the sports fraternity, too, announcing that Maidan station would be renamed after Calcutta football legend Gostho Pal.

Rituparna Sengupta, who missed today’s event, told The Telegraph over the phone: “I couldn’t attend the programme as I had a shoot to finish in Mumbai. But I will support Didi in any development work she does.”

On Thursday, Rituparna had been part of a team that met chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee to hand over a cheque for Aila relief.

Some like Prosenjit have one foot in each camp but for a cause — he had steered a football match a few weeks ago to help the Left Front raise funds for the cyclone victims.

Mithun Chakraborty, Roopa Ganguly, Sabyasachi Chakraborty, Biplab Chatterjee and Arindam Sil have stayed firmly in the Left fold.

“I wasn’t invited to today’s programme. I think there was a Tollywood presence only because Tollygunge station was being renamed after Uttam Kumar. They were not there because of Mamata. Besides, the Metro extension was initiated by the Bengal government long ago,” Sil said.

Governor Gopalkrishna Gandhi, the guest of honour at the inauguration, surprised everyone by reaching the venue by Metro. “I did not come in my motor car but on Metro. It was a pleasant journey and the Rs 6 ticket I bought is invaluable for me,” the governor said.

He was accompanied in the train journey by his security and aide-de-camp. “We did not have prior information about the governor’s trip,” a Metro official said.

Not that politics was kept at arm’s length. The transport minister did not attend, complaining he was invited in a “shabby manner”.

The 5.9km stretch from Mahanayak Uttam Kumar (Tollygunge) to Kabi Nazrul (Garia Bazar) would be opened for passenger traffic from 2pm tomorrow.