Calcutta, Aug. 22: Ranjit Kundu, the state transport minister, today said he felt “insulted” at the manner in which he had been invited by Metro Railway to the inauguration of the Tollygunge-Garia extension.
Kundu didn’t attend the event that began at 3pm but came to Writers’ Buildings at 3.30pm to tell the media that he felt slighted.
“I left an important meeting to come to Writers’ today to inform you about the shabby manner in which the invitation was given,” Kundu said.
“I certainly felt insulted. I was surprised to know that an RPF officer came to my chamber yesterday to give the invitation card. On the list of invitees, my name was the penultimate one,” Kundu said.
Asked why he did not go to the inauguration, the minister said: “I couldn’t attend it because of work.”
It is not known if Kundu was in his chamber when the Railway Protection Force officer went to deliver the card. He did not receive it himself.
“Later, a Metro general manager sent an invite by fax. Is this the right way to invite a minister? I feel the state government was slighted by the railway ministry despite being a financial contributor to the Tollygunge-Garia extension project,” Kundu said.
Kundu’s name featured in newspaper advertisements of the event today. But chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, though invited, found no mention in the ads. Bhattacharjee’s card was also delivered by an RPF officer.
Metro Rail officials said the invitation was sent to the chief minister’s office yesterday morning. “The invitation cards were printed late and we got them on Thursday evening,” a senior Metro official said, trying to explain the delay.
Asked why RPF officers were sent to Writers’, he said: “There are tight security rules at Writers’. So, Metro security officers who liaise with the government were sent there. The invitation card reached the CM’s office around 10am yesterday. The officer got this acknowledged.”
Asked if Bhattacharjee had been invited, an official in the chief minister’s secretariat had said yesterday: “The chief minister is unwell. He won’t be able to attend any programme in the next two days.”
CPM state secretary Biman Bose today reacted angrily to the “discourtesy”.
“We have observed that government programmes are taking the colour of political events.... This Metro project is in a metro city which has a mayor. He should have been invited. The state does not exist in the sky. It has a chief minister, a transport minister. I am told that the transport minister was invited by a Railway Protection Force officer. The state has a role in this project in terms of land acquisition and cost-sharing. Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit is invited to railway programmes,” Bose said in Purulia.
Governor Gopalkrishna Gandhi, Metro sources said, was first invited over the phone. “The governor was the guest of honour at the event and so the ministry’s secretariat first invited him over the phone. Then, we were directed to send a senior official to Raj Bhavan,” a source said.
Kundu said the railway ministry had behaved in a manner that suggested the Tollygunge-Garia extension was the result of Mamata Banerjee’s efforts alone and that the state had no role in it. “Is this project Mamata’s brainchild? It appears that the ministry wants to give her all the credit. We had written to Nitish Kumar, the railway minister in 1998, for implementation of the project. In 1999, Jyoti Basu had told the Centre we would bear 33 per cent of the cost,” he said. The government contributed Rs 233 crore of the Rs 1,100 crore needed for the project, Kundu added.
