With the exit of Pawan Kumar Bansal, the issue of the passenger fare hike appears to have become inauspicious for the occupier of the hot seat in the ministry of railways. From Nitish Kumar, who was a railways minister during NDA, to Mr Bansal, four ministers could not hold on to the ministry after taking the politically sensitive decision to hike the passenger fares.
Before Mr Bansal, Trinamul Congress nominees — Dinesh Trivedi and Mukul Roy — could last for few months only after being sworn in as the railways minister, after attempting to hike the passenger fares. So much so that the new man in the railways — C.P. Joshi — who is called a status quo minister by senior officials, is expected to leave the proposal of the constitution of the Rail Tariff Authority on file only. Mr Bansal had been pursuing with the idea of making the constitution of the RTA a reality and had apparently prepared a Cabinet note on the issue, which would have allowed the railways to delink the passenger fare fixation from the Rail Budget, sources added.
While the TMC chief Mamata Banerjee got rid of Mr Trivedi, after his presentation of the Rail Budget, which had proposed the passenger fare hike across the board, Mr Roy had allowed hike in the AC classes but he too could not last long in the ministry following the withdrawal of the support by the ruling West Bengal party from the UPA government. Later, Mr Bansal, who had become the first Congress leader to head the railways after a gap of 17 years, too could not last following the cash for promotion scam involving his nephew Vijay Singla.
Incidentally, the former railways ministers — Lalu Prasad Yadav and Mamata Banerjee — had stable and long stay at the Rail Bhavan, with both not touching the subject of the passenger fare hike during their respective tenures.