Left steps in to stop rail ministry in its tracks

BENGAL DIVISION BIFURCATION

The once-bitten twice-shy CPI(M) will approach Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Railway Minister Lalu Prasad against a government proposal to bifurcate a railway division in West Bengal for creating a new division for Bihar.

This time, the Left will not wait till Prasad announces the rail budget and plan to nip the proposal in the bud. The key supporters of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government had to fight hard last year against a similar proposal for Kerala, the other red bastion.

Prasad's junior R Velu, to appease his home state, planned to carve a new Salem division in Tamil Nadu by dividing the Kerala-based Palakkad division.

However, after protests from the Left, the railway ministry gave the 79-km railway line from the Madurai division to Palakkad in return for the Salem division.

Kerala Chief Minister VS Achuthanandan also extracted a promise that no Palakkad division employee would be transferred to the Salem division unless he or she applies.

The CPI(M) leader in Lok Sabha, Basudeb Acharia, said, "Lalu plans bifurcation of the Malda division of Eastern Railway. The areas belonging to Bihar will be made into a separate division. We will oppose this and take up the matter with the prime minister and the railway minister." The headquarters of Eastern Railway are in Kolkata.

The CPI(M) knows that losing railway areas is a sensitive political issue and the opposition will make a big issue of it.

Acharia says the Eastern Railway zone was reduced in size after cash-rich Dhanbad and Mughalsarai divisions were taken away to create the East Central zone when Nitish Kumar was railway minister. Malda will become a 'sick' division if it is divided, he says.

As on January 1, Eastern Railway earned a revenue of Rs 165.68 crore against a target of Rs 142.41 crore. The CPI(M) is also citing various reports of the parliamentary standing committee and independent experts to argue against divison of railway divisions and zones. India has 16 railway zones and 65 divisions.

In the battle on Palakkad, the Left could make the Centre succumb to pressure because cutting across political lines, all parties in Kerala backed the move.

However, Malda is going to be a different tug-of-war. On one side, it's powerful Prasad enjoying a position of strength in UPA and the Bihar lobby while on the other hand it's the Left which can put the government in ransom.