The Congress today demanded the resignation of railway minister Ashwini Vaishnaw over the train accident in West Bengal on Monday, saying he had no moral right to continue as a minister.
“Unless you don’t fix responsibility how do you expect the government to run”, Congress spokesperson Supriya Shrinate told a press conference here today, while asserting, “Ashwini Vaishnaw has no moral right to continue as the rail minister”.
Quoting the CAG reports, she disclosed that funds meant for railway safety were diverted and utilized for buying crockery, furniture and massagers.
She pointed out, that this was the second major train accident within one year and the railways under him (Vaishnaw) seemed to have learnt no lessons.
The Congress leader observed that railways were the most popular means of transportation because of were economical and were mostly used by the middle classes, lower middle classes and the poor.
She said, there were no more secure means of transportation and people were not sure that once they boarded a train they would safely reach their destination.
Maintaining that rail safety had gone for a toss during the ten years of the BJP regime, Shrinate disclosed that 1117 accidents had taken place from 2014 to 2023, meaning a train accident had taken place every third day. She said these were the official figures.
Referring to the railway minister’s claims and live demonstration of ‘kavach pranali’ (special protection system) to prevent collision between trains if they run on the same track, she asked, what happened to it.
The Congress leader said that the railways were completely mismanaged and had suffered because of the callous indifference and negligence of the government. She pointed out, there were 3.12 lakh vacancies in the railways, which the government was not filling up.
She said, 21 per cent posts of the loco-pilots were vacant, leading to an extra burden on the staff with 12-14 continuous working hours sometimes. She said that, at times the accidents are caused due to human error, which is the result of the overburdened staff.
The Congress spokesperson alleged that the BJP government had destroyed the railways. She observed it was neither a safe nor economical mode of transportation anymore under the Modi regime.
She pointed out, that the fares had been doubled and tripled and with dynamic pricing at times, rail travel turns out to be more expensive than air travel.
Referring to the terrible shortage of trains, she disclosed that 2.70 crore people’s tickets got cancelled last year as these could not be confirmed.
She also criticised Vaishnaw’s statement that the police force should be used to prevent unreserved passengers from travelling in reserved coaches. She said people don’t board the trains out of fun, but because of compulsion.
She said, the rail minister probably has not travelled on a rail which is why he is oblivious to the problems faced by the rail passengers.
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