Title - After Trinamool’s exit, rail blockade begins in Bengal

Three days after the Trinamool Congress pulled out of the UPA government and Mukul Roy put in his papers as the Railway minister, people put up a blockade at Champahati Railway Station in North 24-Parganas for about four hours on Monday morning. Such blockades were never witnessed in Bengal when Trinamool chief Mamata Banerjee or her MPs — Dinesh Trivedi and Mukul Roy — held the railway portfolio.The protesters were demanding a special train for women.“The blockade started at 7.30 am and was lifted at 11.20 am after the intervention of the GRPF,” said Subir Biswas, Station Master of Champahati. He also said that many trains had to be rescheduled and service regularised in the evening.It was alleged that GRPF officials arrived late because they were “no longer under a pressure to perform”. “Demonstrators also said that now that the Centre’s relationship with the state has soured, the projects that had been announced would failed to take off,” said a passenger who was caught in the agitation.GRPF officials, however, brushed aside the allegation of lackadaisical attitude. “We arrived on time. The negotiation to stop the protesters from blocking the track took a lot of time. We could not just disperse the huge crowd using force,” said a senior official of GRPF at Sonarpur.While the former railway minister Mukul Roy was not available for comment, senior Trinamool leader Subrata Mukherjee said there was no cause to worry that the announced projects will be halted. “The reason for the agitation seems very flimsy. These projects will remain on course,” he said.