The discussion on the Railway Budget in the Lok Sabha on Tuesday had MPs taking swipes at each other, forcing Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee to join issue — at times snapping in anger, at times in bemusement at Opposition members.

Ananth Kumar, BJP leader and MP from Bangalore (South), who initiated the debate, accused Mamata of reducing the Railways to a modern-day variant of the “East India Company”. “You have made this Railway Budget an election manifesto for Bengal. Out of 309 model stations being proposed, 40 are from Kolkata, and 97 from Bengal. Sara Bengal, baaki sab kangal (Everything for Bengal; nothing for rest),” said the BJP leader. The minister replied that “other members were free to suggest names of stations, which would be duly incorporated in the proposed scheme”.

Kumar added that the budget might help her win elections in the state, “and his party would support her bid for chief ministership as that would rid the state of Communists”, but wanted to know why “Bangalore had fallen off the minister’s radar”. Visibly upset, Mamata told him: “I think of Bangalore also (but) do not insult my state. I respect your state, I respect India (but) don’t disrespect Bengal.” Ananth retorted: “I love Vivekananda, I love Rabindranath Tagore, I love Vande Mataram, more than Mamataji does. But don’t insult Karnataka or other states.”

The inter-state divide then got extended to the western frontiers. Congress Nagpur MP Vilas Muttemwar, while praising the Budget, inadvertently referred to Mumbai as “Bombay”, prompting BJP MP Gopinath Munde to demand an immediate correction. Muttemwar made amends. BJP MP Shahnawaz Hussain, who had joined Munde in having a go at Muttemwar, drew fire from the Congress leader. “How can you not praise the Railway Budget? This is, after all, for the first time that students of madrasas have been included under the railway concession pass scheme,” said Muttemwar, to which Hussain replied: “This has been done only grudgingly”.

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