When he rose to present the Narendra Modi Government’s first full-fledged Rail Budget, Suresh Prabhu’s understated appearance stood out amid a flood of starched and laundry-dried MPs in the Lok Sabha.

Sporting a mustard shirt and brown pants, as the Railway Minister began his speech, expectations writ large on the faces of MPs in the House both in the Opposition and Treasury benches. With the Railways often used as a tool for vote bank politics, the MPs were hoping for some takeaways this year, too. Alas, that was not to be, as no new trains were announced. To that extent, Prabhu’s Budget is non-discriminatory.

A chartered accountant by profession, Prabhu’s over an hour-long speech was almost like a boardroom presentation, during which he spelt out his five-year vision for transformation of this “precious national asset” and outlined 11 thrust areas in line with the Government’s Swachh Bharat, Digital India, and Make in India missions.

To buttress his point, Prabhu quoted Vinoba Bhave: “You will stumble if you look close to your heels and would certainly fall if you ignore the vision of the long road.” But, much before the ‘long road’ to Prabhu’s speech drew to a close, peppered with words such as cleanliness of trains, stations and toilets, help-lines, SMS alerts, online food booking, CCTVs for safety, on-board entertainment, Wi-Fi facilities and so on, some MPs had started yawning and were restless.

Murmurs, cross-talk, coughing and gesturing began, akin to audience reaction to a much-hyped play that does not meet their expectations. And, the moment Prabhu ended his speech and lunged for his glass of water, Opposition MPs were on their feet, some of them making ‘zeroes’ in the air.

Ruling party MPs, too, looked dissatisfied, with Sultanpur MP Varun Gandhi even showing a ‘thumbs down’, much to the amusement of some of his party colleagues.

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