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”.

The tale of India, interwoven in the Railways, didn’t stop there. BJP members claimed that “Duronto” — a new scheme introduced by Mamata — meant “tragic” in Kannada, “which explained the larger tenor of the Budget”. Mamata’s deputy in the Ministry, K H Muniappa, tore apart the claim and said that “the BJP members had got their facts wrong” and the word was “Turanto, which had Sanskrit origins, and which meant fast”.

With MPs airing state-based grievances, former railway minister Lalu Prasad Yadav, statesman-like on Tuesday, had the last word: “Lalu never discriminated against other states (during his tenure). I was also told about the discrimination against Bihar (in the present Budget). But it is not West Bengal, nor is it a Gujjar-like agitation (and therefore we didn’t take to the streets in Bihar). When Railway property is harmed, it is my body that burns. It is neither mine, nor yours. It is Indian Railways.”