Dinesh Trivedi may end up as first rail minister to go after presenting budget
NEW DELHI: Railway minister Dinesh Trivediappeared to be on the brink of losing his job within hours of presenting a budget that was hailed by Congress as "forward looking" but savaged by his own party, Trinamool Congress, as "anti-people" for proposing an across-the-board passenger fare hike.
In a swift retaliation to the defiance of Mamata Banerjee's direction to not raise fares, the West Bengal chief minister faxed a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh asking him to sack Trivedi and replace him with her loyalist Mukul Roy. There were indications that Congress will have to grudgingly agree to Mamata's demand for fear of offending an ally whose 19 MPs in theLok Sabha are crucial for the government's survival.
The scenario kept changing through the day. Initially, after the Congress and PM supported the budget, it appeared the UPA was willing to risk Mamata's wrath. The surmise was that it had stitched up support from elsewhere - SP, BSP or both - and was no longer averse to losing, if it came to that, a restive and demanding ally.
However, late at night it seemed Congress, too, had been taken by surprise. Pranab Mukherjeecalled up Mamata to ask her to not insist on Roy's induction until he presents the Union Budget on Friday. Mamata is learned to have agreed on the condition that Roy would be the one to announce a full rollback. At the time of going to press, Trivedi's resignation appeared imminent.
Earlier, the Congress core group had a late-night meeting in which party leaders considered several scenarios, including the possibility of requesting Mamata to put off her demand to replace Trivedi with Roy until March 31 when Parliament's Budget session goes into recess.
It now looks certain that TMC plans to force a fare rollback with a delegation of party MPs seeking time from the PM on Thursday. The dramatic developments, which dwarfed Trivedi's maiden rail budget, are likely to also strengthen Congress's efforts to rustle up alternative numbers to deal with Trinamool's continuing brinkmanship.
The sub-text of Trivedi's imminent ouster is Mamata's growing suspicion that he had moved too close to Congress. his budget is seen by her as evidence of that. It's said the minister faced the possibility of being sacked after the budget irrespective of whether or not he had hiked fares.
Congress can't be happy with the nomination of Roy as replacement for Trivedi. When Mamata had proposed Roy's name in the first instance, Congress had opposed his candidature, clearing the way for Trivedi and stoking Mamata's suspicions about him.
But few in Congress had expected Trivedi to engage in the defiance he did on the issue of passenger fare hike: something that can undercut Mamata's pro-poor credentials just before her populist matchup with CPM in the panchayat polls, which will be her first serious political test after her landslide victory last year.
An angry Mamata reacted to Trivedi's insubordination by instantly slapping a "rollback or rollover" notice on him. "Can Pranab Mukherjee prepare a budget which is contrary to the wishes of Congress chief Sonia Gandhi?" a livid Mamata is said to have asked her party colleagues, making it clear that for Trivedi's hike was an act of political defiance.
The TMC leader in Lok Sabha, Sudip Bandopadhyaya conveyed Banerjee's displeasure to the railway minister, while another Trinamool MP, Derek O'Brien tweeted: "The fare hike is unacceptable." Mamata instructed Bandopadhyaya to publicly disown the fare hike, which he did.
Speculation about Mamata and Trivedi putting on a good-cop, bad-cop act by Trivedi hiking fares and Didi forcing a rollback were scotched by Mamata when she demanded Trivedi's sack. Earlier, while addressing a rally in Nandigaram she had publicly demanded a withdrawal of the hike. She later said her party would ask for a cut motion in the railway budget to nix the fare hike.
This threat of a cut motion is a first for members of the ruling party or coalition and makes Trivedi's continuation in the Cabinet untenable. An unrepentant Trivedi justified the hike in "national interest", and said he was ready to be sacked rather than succumb to pressure from Kolkata. He even cited Bhagat Singh saying, "He had sacrificed his life for the country, what is a job of me?"
Sources in Congress indicated that it did not wish to precipitate matters yet, and would agree to sack Trivedi. Congress's rising tensions with Trinamool have coincided with a marked de-escalation of its hostilities with Samajwadi Party which with its 22 members in Lok Sabha can offset the loss of Trinamool's 19 MPs. In a goodwill gesture, Congress has deputed party treasurer Motilal Vora and parliamentary affairs minister Pawan Bansal to attend Akhilesh Yadav's swearing-in ceremony in Lucknow on Thursday.
Manmohan Singh too sounded remarkably confident as he sought to play down the suggestion that the conflict with Trinamool could reduce UPA to a minority. "Government is stable, we have the numbers," Singh said. This was the second such assertion in the last three days.
Currently, UPA has a strength of 277, that is, a tally which is just above the half-way mark of 272 in Lok Sabha. It also has the outside support of 51 MPs belonging to SP, BSP, RJD and JD (S).
The uncertainty over Trivedi's status as well as the state of Congress-TMC ties should be over by Monday when the debate on the railway budget is scheduled to begin. Having been submitted to Parliament, the budget proposals can be withdrawn or amended, if at all, in the course of railway minister's reply in Lok Sabha which is likely to take place on Tuesday at the earliest. But the ambiguity over Trivedi's status may be over a day earlier as the railway minister has to be present in the House when budget starts.
NEW DELHI: Railway minister Dinesh Trivediappeared to be on the brink of losing his job within hours of presenting a budget that was hailed by Congress as "forward looking" but savaged by his own party, Trinamool Congress, as "anti-people" for proposing an across-the-board passenger fare hike.
In a swift retaliation to the defiance of Mamata Banerjee's direction to not raise fares, the West Bengal chief minister faxed a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh asking him to sack Trivedi and replace him with her loyalist Mukul Roy. There were indications that Congress will have to grudgingly agree to Mamata's demand for fear of offending an ally whose 19 MPs in theLok Sabha are crucial for the government's survival.
The scenario kept changing through the day. Initially, after the Congress and PM supported the budget, it appeared the UPA was willing to risk Mamata's wrath. The surmise was that it had stitched up support from elsewhere - SP, BSP or both - and was no longer averse to losing, if it came to that, a restive and demanding ally.
However, late at night it seemed Congress, too, had been taken by surprise. Pranab Mukherjeecalled up Mamata to ask her to not insist on Roy's induction until he presents the Union Budget on Friday. Mamata is learned to have agreed on the condition that Roy would be the one to announce a full rollback. At the time of going to press, Trivedi's resignation appeared imminent.
Earlier, the Congress core group had a late-night meeting in which party leaders considered several scenarios, including the possibility of requesting Mamata to put off her demand to replace Trivedi with Roy until March 31 when Parliament's Budget session goes into recess.
It now looks certain that TMC plans to force a fare rollback with a delegation of party MPs seeking time from the PM on Thursday. The dramatic developments, which dwarfed Trivedi's maiden rail budget, are likely to also strengthen Congress's efforts to rustle up alternative numbers to deal with Trinamool's continuing brinkmanship.
The sub-text of Trivedi's imminent ouster is Mamata's growing suspicion that he had moved too close to Congress. his budget is seen by her as evidence of that. It's said the minister faced the possibility of being sacked after the budget irrespective of whether or not he had hiked fares.
Congress can't be happy with the nomination of Roy as replacement for Trivedi. When Mamata had proposed Roy's name in the first instance, Congress had opposed his candidature, clearing the way for Trivedi and stoking Mamata's suspicions about him.
But few in Congress had expected Trivedi to engage in the defiance he did on the issue of passenger fare hike: something that can undercut Mamata's pro-poor credentials just before her populist matchup with CPM in the panchayat polls, which will be her first serious political test after her landslide victory last year.
An angry Mamata reacted to Trivedi's insubordination by instantly slapping a "rollback or rollover" notice on him. "Can Pranab Mukherjee prepare a budget which is contrary to the wishes of Congress chief Sonia Gandhi?" a livid Mamata is said to have asked her party colleagues, making it clear that for Trivedi's hike was an act of political defiance.
The TMC leader in Lok Sabha, Sudip Bandopadhyaya conveyed Banerjee's displeasure to the railway minister, while another Trinamool MP, Derek O'Brien tweeted: "The fare hike is unacceptable." Mamata instructed Bandopadhyaya to publicly disown the fare hike, which he did.
Speculation about Mamata and Trivedi putting on a good-cop, bad-cop act by Trivedi hiking fares and Didi forcing a rollback were scotched by Mamata when she demanded Trivedi's sack. Earlier, while addressing a rally in Nandigaram she had publicly demanded a withdrawal of the hike. She later said her party would ask for a cut motion in the railway budget to nix the fare hike.
This threat of a cut motion is a first for members of the ruling party or coalition and makes Trivedi's continuation in the Cabinet untenable. An unrepentant Trivedi justified the hike in "national interest", and said he was ready to be sacked rather than succumb to pressure from Kolkata. He even cited Bhagat Singh saying, "He had sacrificed his life for the country, what is a job of me?"
Sources in Congress indicated that it did not wish to precipitate matters yet, and would agree to sack Trivedi. Congress's rising tensions with Trinamool have coincided with a marked de-escalation of its hostilities with Samajwadi Party which with its 22 members in Lok Sabha can offset the loss of Trinamool's 19 MPs. In a goodwill gesture, Congress has deputed party treasurer Motilal Vora and parliamentary affairs minister Pawan Bansal to attend Akhilesh Yadav's swearing-in ceremony in Lucknow on Thursday.
Manmohan Singh too sounded remarkably confident as he sought to play down the suggestion that the conflict with Trinamool could reduce UPA to a minority. "Government is stable, we have the numbers," Singh said. This was the second such assertion in the last three days.
Currently, UPA has a strength of 277, that is, a tally which is just above the half-way mark of 272 in Lok Sabha. It also has the outside support of 51 MPs belonging to SP, BSP, RJD and JD (S).
The uncertainty over Trivedi's status as well as the state of Congress-TMC ties should be over by Monday when the debate on the railway budget is scheduled to begin. Having been submitted to Parliament, the budget proposals can be withdrawn or amended, if at all, in the course of railway minister's reply in Lok Sabha which is likely to take place on Tuesday at the earliest. But the ambiguity over Trivedi's status may be over a day earlier as the railway minister has to be present in the House when budget starts.
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