The Hindu : Front Page : I have planted a tree and it will bear fruit for years: Lalu

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I have planted a tree and it will bear fruit for years: Lalu

Anita Joshua

Minister thanks protester, reassures respect for Kannadigas

— Photo: PTI / Kamal Singh

Blessing before budget: Railways Minister Lalu Prasad at his residence in New Delhi on Tuesday morning before presenting the Railway budget. .

NEW DELHI: Modesty was evidently not a concern of those who prepared Railway Minister Lalu Prasad’ speech on his big day in Parliament. Right from the word go, Mr. Prasad was eager to showpiece the “unprecedented heights of success and progress these days” of the Railways, courtesy the “out-of-the-box thinking and passion to follow the road less travelled” by him and his team.

Sab kah rahe hain humne gazab kaam kiya hai, karoron ka munafa har ek shaam diya hai, phal saalon yeh ab dega, paudha jo lagaya hai, sewa ka, samarpan ka, har farz nibhaya hai,” Mr. Prasad said at the outset after informing the Lok Sabha that the net surplus of the Railways before dividend was better than that of most of the Fortune 500 companies in the world.

As members from south India protested the absence of translation of his little verse, the Minister offered to translate it himself. With great aplomb, he said: “Everybody is saying I have done tremendous work. I have brought huge profits. I have planted a tree and it will [bear] fruit for years …” Delivered in typical ‘Lalu style’, the translation drew peals of laughter from across the floor and set the tone for the afternoon, a mood that dissolved into rancour only towards the end as members got restive over “neglect” of their respective States.

BJP demand

Protests, in fact, marked the beginning and end of his speech. At the outset, Bharatiya Janata Party members from Karnataka sought to nail the Minister over press reports on his reported description of Kannadigas in bad taste during a recent visit to the State. Mr. Prasad reminded the members that his Ministry had issued a rejoinder to the reports.

And, he then turned the tables on the Karnataka MPs, thanking them for raising the issue in Parliament and thereby giving him a platform to state once again that he had the utmost respect for Kannadigas.

“I made a man from Karnataka the Prime Minister. How can I say such a thing,” he quipped and added to the BJP’s discomfiture that it was another matter that the very same man had not supported the BJP in the State.

Not one to let go of any opportunity to take a dig at his opponents, Mr. Prasad, making frequent references to criticism of him peddling dreams like the fictional character Mungeri Lal, time and again sought to remind the nation that he had inherited an institution that was in the doldrums.

“Today, after the financial turnaround of the organisation, the same people are making tall claims trying to take credit for the financial turnaround.” In verse, he strung it as ujra chaman jo chhod gaye thay, humarey dost, ab baat kar rahe hain, wo fuslay bahaar ki.

While taking credit for the way the Railways was chugging along from one success to another, and attributing it to a new line of thinking and work ethic, the Minister made one concession: divine intervention.

The Goddess of Wealth, Lakshmi, had been “exceptionally considerate” on the Railways during the last four years.

Divine intervention and human enterprise, he said, had helped the Railways strike one goal after another; giving enough reason for kids to say “Chak de Railway!”

Rail Budget 2008-09

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