Mamata's hypocrisy: Roll back rail fares but raise prices in Bengal

Practice what you preach isn’t something the mercurial Mamata Banerjee believes in. How else would you explain the West Bengal chief minister’s act of hiking power, milk and transport prices in her state after leading a crusade against rail minister Dinesh Trivedi for raising passenger fares? Mamata has already made power and milk dearer and her government is now considering a proposal to increase tram fares, reports Business Standard. [caption id=“attachment_251213” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“If only the Bengal CM practised what she preached. AFP”]  [/caption] In fact, since the Trinamool Congress came to power Mamata has allowed prices across the state power utilities to be quietly increased three times, a cumulative rise of 29.5 percent, adds the report. Besides power, Mamata has made milk, a household essential, costlier by Rs 6 per litre. And, it is expected to become dearer by another Rs 4 per litre in the next couple of months. In the transport sector, Calcutta Tramways Company (CTC) has come out with a proposal to increase tram fares up to Rs 1.50 to revive the ailing transport systems, after the government declared it would withdraw the annual Rs 600 crore subsidy from transport corporations. So what wrong did Dinesh Trivedi do? Why was he sacked? And why does the hypocrite Mamata still reign? The former railway minister himself gave us the answer when he revealed that his sacking had nothing to do with the passenger fare hike and that there was too much politics in the country . Clearly, raising prices of utilities, essentials and jacking up transport fares speaks volumes of the Trinamool’s dual stance. As CPI-M Central Committee member Mohammed Salim told Business Standard, “By increasing the electricity tariff, they have proved that though they dramatise incidents, the government in Bengal is following the same “Manmohanomics”, by putting pressure on the common man.”