In what is being seen as a major embarrassment for the government, minister of state for railways Mukul Roy has virtually ignored a directive by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who is also currently handling the railway portfolio, to rush to the site of the Guwahati-Puri Express derailment in Assam. Indications are that Mr Roy, who is now in
Kolkata, is planning to accompany his party leader, West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, to Junglemahal in the state’s Midnapore district on Tuesday.
Mr Roy is reportedly sulking at not being elevated to Cabinet rank as railway minister, sources said. Instead, another Trinamul Congress leader, minister of state for health Dinesh Trivedi, who is known for his administrative abilities, is now tipped to get a promotion and take over the railway ministry. Mr Roy is expected to continue as an MoS. There are two other ministers of the state in the railway ministry.
The Prime Minister, who is understood to have pulled up Mr Roy on Monday for his “callous attitude, had asked him to rush to the accident site in Assam. Speaking on the phone from Kolkata, Mr Roy said: “There are other railway ministers who can go.” He added later that he “will go only if necessary”.
In Fatehpur, Uttar Pradesh, rescue work continued relentlessly to free passengers from the debris of the Howrah-Delhi-Kalka Mail, which derailed on Sunday afternoon. The death toll went up to 68 on Monday, with some more bodies expected to be trapped under the debris.
The body of a Swedish national was among those unearthed from the mangled heap. He has been identified as Wick, going by the statement of his injured companion Oscar, who was travelling with him. Another passenger from Sweden is reportedly among those missing after the mishap.
Army personnel were making a concerted effort to extricate the trapped passengers and their bodies from the damaged AC coaches and other bogies. Col. A.D.S. Dhillion, supervising the operation, said many people were still trapped under the mangled coaches. Over 100 Armymen were working at the spot, and additional medical supplies were being rushed to the area.
Two bogies were taken off by a crane and efforts are on to cut them open and take out bodies. “It is unlikely there would be any survivors after 24 hours, but we are hoping for the best,” a senior railway official said at the accident site. Sniffer dogs too have been pressed into service to trace those trapped under heaps of mangled metal.
In Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh special DGP Brij Lal told reporters: “Rescue and relief operations by the police, Army and National Disaster Response team are over. Altogether 68 people were killed in the derailment. Of the 68 killed, 46 have been identified, and 19 bodies have been claimed by the next of kin of the victims.”
In New Delhi, while the PMO has gone quiet on the brazen refusal of a MoS to follow the PM’s
instructions, the Congress, caught in coalition politics, tried to play down the issue, with party spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi saying: “He (Roy) was only trying to talk about the distance and place he is in right now.”
In Guawahati, top railway officials said they had also “heard on television that the MoS is expected to visit”, but had not officially “got any such intimation as yet”.
Two major rail accidents took place on Sunday. In the second one in Assam, around 100 people were injured when eight coaches of the Guwahati-Puri Express derailed following an IED blast, suspected to have been set off by Bodo militants. But despite both accidents, in the space of a few hours, Mr Roy chose to spend the entire day in Kolkata, following Ms Banerjee to the state Assembly and then Writers’ Buildings. He is now reportedly preparing to follow his party chief to Junglemahal, where Ms Banerjee is expected to announce an economic package for the area.
Despite the railways’ dismal performance — with over 300 people killed and more than 200 injured in accidents in the past three years — political compulsions will, however, force the government to allow its powerful Trinamul Congress ally to retain the railway portfolio. With the Congress-DMK relationship coming under strain, the Prime Minister has no alternative but to keep Trinamul, with its 19 MPs, in good humour. Also, in
the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, if the trend continues in West Bengal, Ms Banerjee is likely to emerge as a major player in national coalition politics. The Trinamul will also have 12 Rajya Sabha MPs, virtually making it one of the leading outfits in the Upper House.
The Opposition, particularly the CPI(M), on Monday attacked the UPA government for the “spate” of railway accidents, saying the ministry had suffered “acute neglect” due to political reasons. They also demanded an explanation from the Prime Minister on how this “shocking state of affairs” was allowed to continue.
Immediately after news of Sunday’s Howrah-Delhi-Kalka Mail accident spread, Ms Mamata Banerjee apparently “took charge” of the situation and continued to “guide” her men, particularly Mr Roy, from Kolkata. Reports from
Kolkata claimed that she even directed Mr Roy on the
hospitals that the victims needed to be taken to. “The railways should make arrangements to get them admitted to B.R. Singh Hospital (a railway hospital in Kolkata) or other hospitals or nursing homes of their choice,” a news report from Kolkata quoted Ms Banerjee as saying. It was further claimed that Ms Banerjee asked her man at Rail Bhavan to “ensure that the relief train from Howrah leaves on time. The injured who want to get treatment in Kolkata must be brought here, if necessary by the Rajdhani and other express trains.”