Bengal government clearance a must for name change of Bardhaman station: Mamata

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday said she has no knowledge about the proposal to rename the state's Bardhaman railway station after revolutionary freedom fighter Batukeshwar Dutt and claimed that the state government's clearance is a must for the name change.

Union Minister of State for Home Nityanand Rai on Saturday said the Bardhaman railway station will be renamed for Dutt, who was born in that district in 1910. He had accompanied Bhagat Singh to the national assembly in Delhi where they courted arrest after throwing bombs and revolutionary pamphlets while raising the slogan "Inquilab Zindabad".

"I was railway minister for a long time. If the name of a railway station is to be changed, the state government has to be first clearly intimated about the proposal. A political party's proposal is not everything," Banerjee said when asked to respond on the issue.

"If they want to change any station's name, so far as I know, my state government has to give the clearance. As per norms, the state government has to propose the new name and approve it.

"I do not know, nothing is in my knowledge (regarding this). It is a BJP proposal. But BJP is not the government. There are so many political parties but the government runs as per Constitution and not as per party lines," she said.

Rai, who is also the BJP's Bihar chief, made the statement regarding the name change of the railway station after visiting Dutt's house in the Jakkanpur locality in Bihar's Patna on the occasion of his death anniversary on July 20.

Dutt, who was sentenced for life following his arrest and deported to a jail in the Andaman and Nicobar islands, had settled down in Patna after independence. He died in 1965. IANS