Kolkata got its second metro line on Thursday, 36 years after the country's first underground connectivity system came into being in the city, but the event came under the shadow of political acrimony with the ruling Trinamool Congress boycotting it.
Railway Minister Piyush Goyal flagged off the first phase of the East-West corridor of the mass rapid transport network but the TMC gave the event a miss protesting against the absence of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's name from the invitation card for the programme.
The first phase of the East-West Metro corridor connecting the Sector V of Salt Lake, the IT hub of the city, with the Salt Lake Stadium in the area.
The inaugural train zoomed off from Sector V station to traverse a 4.88-km distance to the Stadium, as Goyal said that the entire 16.5-km stretch of the corridor - till Howrah Maidan - is likely to be completed in two years.
"The entire stretch of the East-West Metro corridor from Sector V to Howrah Maidan is likely to be completed in two years, provided bottlenecks affecting it are cleared through local support," Goyal said in his speech.
Commercial services, connecting six overground stations - Sector V, Karunamoyee, Central Park, City Centre, Bengal Chemical and Salt Lake Stadium stations - will commence on Friday.
Obliquely blaming the Trinamool Congress government for the delay in completion of work on the East-West Metro corridor, Goyal said, "Though work on the project started in 2009, it was stalled from 2012 to 2015 on the pretext of route realignment."
Echoing similar sentiments, Bose said, "Why should we attend the event when our chief minister has not been invited? The BJP should refrain from such petty politics."