Family watching, minister gets PM to clap, MPs to sulk

 Aditi Tandon

New Delhi, February 26

 It is rare to see Prime Minister Narendra Modi applaud his Cabinet colleagues in public. But today, he thumped his desk more than generously as Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu presented the BJP government’s first full Rail Budget. Prabhu’s unusually long 80-minute speech had Finance Minister Arun Jaitley surprised, considering the Finance Minister has to present the government’s first full General Budget this Saturday.

Normally, General Budget speeches are that long while Rail Budgets are crisper.

But Prabhu took his time to speak about how he planned to revive the ailing Indian Railways which he described as a “travelling home of the people”, asking them to keep it clean and pitching for Swachh Rail, knowing that the PM was listening.

Quoting Vinoba Bhave, the 61-year-old smartly laid the foundation to excuse himself for not naming any new trains or lines, something that had the MPs sulking. “Any organisation must address short-term priorities without glossing over the long-term vision. As Vinoba Bhave said: You will stumble if you look close to your heels and would certainly fall if you ignore the vision of the long road,” mentioned Prabhu, as his wife Uma and son Ameya watched from the visitors’ gallery meant for the general public. The minister’s family made a statement in simplicity by occupying the visitors’ gallery instead of the VVIP gallery where Congress’ Madhusudan Mistry, PL Punia, and Rajeev Shukla and TMC’s Derek O Brien sat. Prominent among the MPs who skipped the budget presentation today were Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi and Congress’ deputy leader Capt Amarinder Singh.

The Treasury benches were, however, packed with PM Modi routinely applauding Prabhu, more so when he recalled national icons Mahatma Gandhi, Swami Vivekananda and Vinoba Bhave. Though Prabhu used humour to spice up his speech (like once he asked: Hey Prabhu, Railways ka uddhar kaise hoga), he was hooted down by Opposition MPs when the presentation ended without any trains being announced.