Mamata effect seen in rly transfers

Chennai
Nov. 24: Mr M. S. Jayanth has moved out of the general manager's cabin at the Southern Railway. He has joined as GM in South-Central Railway headquartered at Secunderabad. There are strong rumours that his successor would come from the Eastern Railway. Mr Deepak Krishnan, presently GM at Kolkata, is likely to take charge at Chennai on Thursday.
What is interesting is that there is lot of talk that the railway mantri, Ms Mamata Banerjee, is moving officers from her eastern sector, identified as her loyalists, to south so that she could 'take stronger control' of the region. Mr Jayanth had been very active in Chennai and was often spotted rubbing shoulders with DMK bigwigs under the pretext of discussing new projects, cutting ribbons or flagging off special trains. Perhaps that did not go down well with the Bengal tigress.
Nevertheless, the Madrasis will miss Mr Jayanth. He had enjoyed the support of railmen down the line for his dynamism - remember he spent several days in difficult conditions in Nilgiris to supervise restoration of lines breached by the recent landslips caused by heavy rains? The devout SR chief introduced special trains for Ayyappa devotees to reach Sabarimala and also linked his favourite Shakti abode of Melmaruvathur, some 60 km south of Chennai.
His railway colleagues were surprised when Mr Jayanth called on the DMK's southern satrap, Mr M. K. Alagiri, at his Madurai home to seek help for strengthening the railway network in the south. Unusually, the SR invitation for Chennai-Delhi Duronto train had all the political heavyweights attending the Chennai ceremony a couple of months back, including Union ministers P. Chidambaram and G. K. Vasan, besides the DMK ministers D. Napolean and the state transport minister K. N. Nehru. It was then said that Mr Jayanth hoped that his PR with politicians will help him remain in Chennai, where he had put in several years in various positions at the SR. Successor Deepak Krishnan will have to start from scratch to build up such cozy political contacts.