Patna,(BiharTimes): The love-hate relationship between Bengal and Bihar chief ministers Mamata Banerjee and Nitish Kumar can be traced back to their days in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee cabinet. The issue then was the bifurcation of Eastern Railway and the creation of East Central Railway at Hajipur in Bihar.
The East Central Railway was in fact created during Ram Vilas Paswan’s tenure as the railway minister (1996-98). He was succeeded by Nitish Kumar in 1998, who carried on the project.
But when Trinamool Congress in 1999 joined the NDA and later on Mamata became the railway minister she opposed the creation of East Central Railway.
This created a rift between her and Nitish Kumar though both were in the same cabinet. Even RJD chief Lalu Prasad then openly championed the cause of Bihar. The Bihar Assembly passed a resolution demanding the creation of zone in Hajipur.
When Nitish returned to the Rail Bhawan the work took up pace and the East Central Railway finally came into being on October 1, 2002, that is 21 days after the infamous Rajdhani Express accident on September 9 near Rafiganj in Aurangabad district of Bihar in which over 114 passengers lost their lives.
Gradually Mamata-Nitish relationship improved.
However, the 2004 Lok Sabha election defeat came as a big blow to Mamata and she left the NDA. But Nitish’s graph once again picked up and in November 2005 he became the chief minister of Bihar.
After being in political wilderness Mamata jumped in to the UPA bandwagon and in 2009 became the railway minister in the Manmohan Singh cabinet.
The first thing she did was to release a White Paper on the performance of Indian Railways during the tenure of Lalu Prasad, that is, between 2004 and 2009.
Mamata repeatedly claimed that the railway ministry inflated the figure of profit during the tenure of Lalu Prasad. This was a totally unnecessary move as Lalu was neither a political rival in Bengal nor anywhere else. In fact like TMC the RJD too was in UPA.
Nitish, who then a good friend of the BJP, took political capital out of it and openly backed Mamata.
But like in Nitish’s tenure as railway minister, several major train accidents took place during Mamata’s stay in Rail Bhawan. This gave Lalu an opportunity to take a pot shot on her. Nitish would then feebly come to her rescue.
Mamata, on her part, would see the Marxist design in all the mishaps even where there was a possibility of Maoists and not CPI (M) link as in the case of Gyaneshwari Express accident in which more than 150 died.
TMC’s victory in 2011 Assembly election, which led to the ouster of the Left Front after 34 years of uninterrupted rule, brought Mamata to Kolkata. She became the chief minister. However, she continued to dictate her own party’s railway minister Dinesh Trivedi over budget and other issues. He was compelled by her to resign after the hike in passengers’ rail fare.
Five years down the memory lane, Mamata and Nitish are in different camps. The demonetization provided her an opportunity to take a centre-stage in national politics.
Nitish, perhaps, failed to read the implications of haphazard demonetization announced on November 8.
The following morning on November 9 he launched his pre-planned Nischchay Yatra and remained away from Patna for quite a few days.
Addressing various Chetna Rallies all over the state he continued to talk about his government’s seven resolves and the step he has taken in the direction of prohibition.
Initially he welcomed ‘notebandi’ but hastened to add that nothing would happen if the Centre does not crackdown on ‘benami’ property.
The generally feeling in the Janata Dal (United) was that demonetization should be opposed as it is causing immense hardship to the people, especially poor. Even JD(U)’s former president Sharad Yadav remained active in all the opposition campaign against it. He and Mamata were on the same page on the issue.
Mamata, who flew to Patna to stage a sit-in against demonetization, called on ailing Lalu Prasad and showered praise on him and his deputy CM son Tejaswi Prasad Yadav. She was critical of Nitish, which prompted JD(U) leaders loyal to Bihar CM to hit back.
Sharad kept himself away though he continued to attend the opposition parties’ meetings in Parliament. His verbal duel with finance minister Arun Jaitley in Rajya Sabha was highlighted by the media, which was full of stories about Nitish’s ‘ghar wapsi’ (homecoming).
Rumours started doing the rounds that the BJP may even put him up as the Presidential candidate in the election due next year.
This embarrassed Nitish, who then started taking tought stand against the saffron brigade. JD(U) came out with the documents on pre-domonetization land purchase by the BJP in many districts of Bihar.
JD(U) insiders are of the view that Nitish was upset as Mamata, who hardly ever aspired to be a PM candidate, succeeded in hogging the national limelight. The JD(U) chief is well aware that he is in minority in his own party. Gradually he may shift his stand.
Sharad kept himself away though he continued to attend the opposition parties’ meetings in Parliament. His verbal duel with finance minister Arun Jaitley in Rajya Sabha was highlighted by the media, which was full of stories about Nitish’s ‘ghar wapsi’ (homecoming).