New Delhi, June 18 (UNI) The Congress on Tuesday held the Narendra Modi government responsible for the Kanchanjunga Express accident in West Bengal and demanded the resignation of Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw.
Addressing a press conference at the AICC headquarters here, party spokesperson Supriya Shrinate said, that in the last 10 years, trains has become the most unsafe mode of transport in the country and it is not making any difference to Prime Minister Modi or his Minister.
Alleging that number of train accidents have increased under the Modi Government, Shrinate said, ‘Exactly a year ago, the Balasore train accident happened that killed 296 people and left more than 900 seriously injured. Now another rail accident happened in West Bengal that claimed 15 lives and has left 40 people injured.
Under the Modi government 1,117 train accidents occurred which means 11 accidents every month or one accident every three days”.
“In such a situation, the question is what changed in one year?” she asked.
Calling Railway Minister Vaishnaw as ‘Reel Minister’ Shrinate said, “Some time back, the Railway Minister was explaining about ‘Kavach’ system, where did the Kavach go in yesterday’s accident”.
She said that earlier, Ministers such as Lal Bahadur Shastri, Nitish Kumar, Madhavrao Scindia, Mamata Banerjee, George Fernandes or Madu Dandavate took moral responsibility for railway accidents and have resigned.
“The reality is that the Minister who should have been immediately removed from his post is being promoted by giving the responsibility of additional ministries,” the party spokesperson said.
The Congress leader alleged that the government has converted sleeper and second class coaches into AC coaches, thus bringing down the number of passengers traveling by train.
She also accused the government of not filling 3.12 lakh posts lying vacant in the railways. Adding that about 20.5% of loco pilot posts and 7.5% of assistant loco pilot posts have been lying vacant. And work pressure on loco pilots were leading to human errors, Shrinate added.
