New Delhi:
For once, it's not the Congress that's feeling Mamata Banerjee's wrath. The Trinamool Party chief directed her ire at the Railways Minister, who is her own nominee to the union cabinet. Ms Banerjee has rejected the nominal increase in passenger fares announced by Dinesh Trivedi. Sources say he has been asked to either withdraw the hike, or resign. The diktat is humiliating for her minister, and embarrassing for the government.
The respite of indirect fire for Congress is sweetened by the fact that Ms Banerjee's party has tripped over its own attempts to challenge the union government on another front -the National Counter Terrorism Centre (NCTC). Her MPs yesterday moved amendments to the President's address - the speech delivered by the President to Parliament that outlines the government's agenda.
Those amendments have been rejected for technical reasons- they were not worded correctly. Ms Banerjee's MPs had asked for the reference to the National Counter Terrorism Centre to be deleted from the President's speech. The opposition BJP had moved a similar amendment; if it pushed for a vote, Ms Banerjee's MPs would have been obliged to vote alongside the opposition and against the government that they are a part of.
The gaffe brings huge respite to the Congress whose relationship with Ms Banerjee has been in the danger zone for a while now. At a dinner hosted by the Prime Minister last night, Ms Banerjee was missing - she chose to fly to Nagpur instead to attend a wedding. The fact that she deputed a first-time MP, Ratna De Nag, and not one of her senior ministers or leaders was seen as a flat snub to the Congress.
Pointedly, Ms Banerjee deputed two of her union ministers to attend the swearing-in today of the Punjab government, a partnership between the Akalis and the BJP. For the UPA's political rival, Ms Banerjee sent a senior delegation. The Prime Minister's dinner, in comparison, received minimal attention.
At the dinner last night, senior Congress leader Pranab Mukherjee made it clear that Ms Banerjee's amendments could cost the government heavily- if a vote was held, he warned, the government could lose.
Ms Banerjee's 19 Lok Sabha MPs give her the power to call the shots with the Congress -without her support, the UPA would collapse - and she has held the government and its policies to hostage with increasing daring. She recently forced the UPA to suspend its reforms in retail - the increased Foreign Direct Investment in shops or chains that stock different brands was a move by the Prime Minister and his team to prove wrong allegations of policy paralysis.