Pass ya fail, Mamata Banerjee will tell

Railways minister Mamata Banerjee continues to raise eyebrows, be it with her selective felicitation of celebrities at the 54th Railway Week National Awards ceremony in Kolkata last week or her decision to grant them life-time free first class railways passes.

Almost all the celebrities who were felicitated had backed Mamata and openly called for change in West Bengal during the Lok Sabha election. They include Gyanpith award-winning writer and social worker Mahashweta Devi, painters Suvaprasanna and Yogen Chowdhury, theatre personality Bivas Chakrabarty, poet Joy Goswami and singer Pratul Mukhopadhyay.

It was surprising to see actor Soumitra Chattopadhyay, directors Mrinal Sen and Gautam Ghosh, magician PC Sarkar (junior) and singers Sandhya Mukhopadhyay and Arati Mukhopadhyay being ignored.

Considering that Mamata always accused the CPI(M) of making divisions among intellectuals, one might as well accuse her of doing the same this time. However, the Trinamool is not willing to take such criticisms seriously. “It is the CPI(M) and state chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee who always distinguishes between ‘we’ and ‘them’. And now they are spreading canards about us,” a Trinamool spokesman said.

As regards giving life-time free passes to celebrities, critics wonder if Mamata can really give such passes to a select few, unless their financial condition is such that they cannot afford travelling expenses. A Trinamool spokesperson said these free passes are nothing compared to the number of free rail passes Mamata’s predecessor Lalu Prasad had instituted. During Lalu’s tenure, an ex-minister plus four could travel free. Mamata Banerjee has done away with that. “Those free passes have now become Gold passes for Bengal’s intellectuals,” the party spokesperson said.

However, Mamata is trying to institute such passes for intellectuals elsewhere in the country too. It is possible that the intellectuals would be honoured wherever a rail week is held in the country.

The Gold rail passes are valid for life or 25 years and the pass owners can travel for free anywhere in the country by AC First Class as many times as they desire.
But the Trinamool source said, “This is just an honour. The people who have been awarded these passes will, at most, travel by train only once a year and that too at their own expense.”