TMC slams PM Modi for not giving credit to previous govts for Chenab rail bridge

New Delhi: Trinamool Congress (TMC) leaders slammed Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday for not giving credit to previous governments for the Chenab rail bridge, and also mentioned the work done during party supremo Mamata Banerjee's tenure as railway minister. In a series of posts on X, TMC leaders Derek O'Brien and Sagarika Ghose said former prime ministers Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh should also be given credit for the rail bridge. "That Narendra Modi waved the flag at inauguration of Chenab Rail Bridge without a word for the hardworking public servants who came before him -- PMs Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh and most importantly Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee who actually sanctioned and laid the groundwork for the project is so typically Modi -- delusional, narcissistic, self-promoting, non-serious," Ghose said. "This kind of jealous credit grabbing is unprecedented in India. Most unfortunate," she added.

In another post, Ghose said, "Vajpayee declared it a 'project of national importance' and it was Mamata Banerjee as then Railway Minister who sanctioned the project and as Railway Minister in the Manmohan Singh government put the project on track by setting up two industrial projects -- a bridge factory in J&K and an institute of tunnel and bridge engineering in Jammu. India's path to progress did not start in 2014." "The Railway Minister who first sanctioned, then fast-tracked and built supportive infrastructure for Chenab Rail Bridge, Mamata Banerjee," she added. TMC's Rajya Sabha leader O'Brien shared on X a photo of the inauguration of the rail line between Anantnag and Qazigund, showing former prime minister Manmohan Singh, Congress leader Sonia Gandhi and Banerjee. Modi on Friday flagged off the first train service to the Kashmir valley and inaugurated several development projects, including the world's highest railway bridge over the Chenab river and India's first cable-stayed Anji bridge.