Though the speed at which he read out his speech while presenting the Rail Budget in Lok Sabha on Thursday matched that of Bhopal Rajdhani, railway minister Suresh Prabhu did not forget to lend it a p
Though the speed at which he read out his speech while presenting the Rail Budget in Lok Sabha on Thursday matched that of Bhopal Rajdhani, railway minister Suresh Prabhu did not forget to lend it a poetic touch as he quoted from poems of noted Hindi poet Harivansh Rai Bachchan and former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee.
During an over hour-long speech of Mr Prabhu, Prime Minister Narendra Modi was seen repeatedly thumping the desk along with other members of the treasury benches in appreciation of the proposals of the budget.
Mr Modi was also seen clapping when Prabhu announced measures to create employment opportunities for “district domiciles” in railway projects and for having toilets in select railway stations for people with disabilities.
The railway minister walked into the House at around 11.50 am and started his speech at 12.05 pm with some of his personal experiences as the railway minister.
Spelling out his strategy, the minister said it would rest on three pillars of “Nav Arjan, Nav Manak and Nav Sanrachna (new revenue, new norm and new structure)”.
Before concluding his speech, Mr Prabhu quoted Gautam Buddha, saying that whenever one contemplates a journey, there are two mistakes one can make: not starting and not going all the way.
“We have already started the journey and I intend to go all the way and we will not rest till we take Bharatiya Rail to a destination called samridhi or success,” the minister said.
Towards the end, many of the Opposition members, including those from the Congress and the Left parties, stood up in protest as they were dissatisfied with the Budget. Some of the agitated members were also heard shouting “shame shame”.
Soon after the presentation of the Budget, Mr Modi went up to Mr Prabhu and shook hands with him. Later, a smiling Mr Modi was also seen chatting with finance minister Arun Jaitley.
SP supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav and BJD member Bijayant Jay Panda as well as many other ministers were also seen chatting with Mr Prabhu after the Budget presentation.
Later, when Mr Prabhu was about to leave the House, and had reached the door, that he remembered he had forgotten his brown suitcase. He walked back and picked it up before exiting finally.
