Union minister Sukanta Majumdar on Sunday claimed that the Railways are unable to complete and commission more than 69 projects in West Bengal due to land availability issues.

“There is no dearth of funds, but the Railways are unable to complete and commission more than 69 projects in West Bengal owing to land availability issues,” he told reporters after inaugurating an AC EMU service at Sealdah railway station here.

Asserting that the Railways will provide the requisite funds for completion of the projects, Majumdar said, “We want the West Bengal government to rise above politics to provide land for these, as it concerns the interest of 10 crore people of the state. It is about the development of the state,” he said.

Majumdar also urged the West Bengal government to send a proposal for renaming the Sealdah railway station after Sangh ideologue Dr Syama Prasad Mookerjee.

“We will certainly get the proposal sanctioned from the central government to change the station’s name to Dr Syama Prasad Mookerjee Sealdah Terminus,” he said.

Hitting out at Majumdar’s proposal of renaming Sealdah station, TMC spokesperson Kunal Ghosh said: “If Sealdah station is to be renamed, let it be renamed commemorating Swami Vivekananda. After his famous speech in Chicago, when Swami Vivekananda came back, he reached Sealdah station first.”

At Dumdum station, where Mazumdar got off the train, TMC and BJP workers engaged in a heated war of words and sloganeering. While TMC workers raised ‘Joy Bangla’ slogans, BJP supporters chanted Jai Shri Ram and Jai Bharat. A TMC protester said, “We don’t want any central minister here. They are anti-Bangla and Bengalis. We Bengalis are being assaulted in other states. They call us foreigners and tell us to go back to Bangladesh. So, wherever we see them, I will say ‘Joy Bangla’.”