For Railway Minister and Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee, political fights are not always over votes. Sometimes it is also about names of railway stations.
And it’s not just the Left Front government that’s stopping Banerjee from rechristening railway stations, but the Congress-ruled Assam too have raised serious objections forcing the Union Home Ministry not to give green signal to Railway Ministry’s proposals to re-name important stations.
In her budget speech, Banerjee had promised to re-name the existing Park Street station of Metro rail to “Mother Teresa” and Chandi Chowk station to “Tipu Sultan”. Earlier, the Left Front government had allowed her to re-name Tollygunj station into “Uttam Kumar” after the legendary film actor of the state. But this time, as the elections are coming near, the state government didn’t bother to respond to the proposals of the Railway Ministry and subsequently, didn’t send any approval to the Union Home Ministry.
As re-naming of airports requires approval of the Union cabinet, re-naming of railway stations also need a clearance of the Home Ministry. Union Home Ministry gives the final clearance after assessing the possible social and law and order impact of the change in the names.
While the proposal to change names of Kolkata Metro stations is pending since April, Banerjee had also announced to change the name of Silchar station in Assam. She wanted to give a new name of Bhasha Shaheed to Silchar station as a tribute to martyrs of the language movement.
Tarun Gogoi government in Assam reacted sharply and told the Centre that any move in this direction would lead the fissures between the Assamese speaking population and the Bengali speaking people in the state. Home Ministry sent back its observations to the Railway Board denying it the permission to change names. Banerjee’s party has plans to contest in the next assembly election of Assam and it has already launched a unit in the state.
Even after the proposal was turned down, an angry Banerjee shot a letter to Union Home Minister P Chidambaram pursuing the proposal but again, she didn’t find any favourable reply.
