New Delhi: The Trinamool Congress (TMC) on Monday (March 17) accused Union railway minister Ashwini Vaishnaw of “not even knowing what was being discussed” after the minister ended his reply on the working of his ministry by asking for the railway budget to be passed, leading to an uproar from opposition benches.
While the upper house was discussing the working of the railway ministry, Vaishnaw responded to the discussion but closed his statement by asking the house to pass the railway budget.
“The Modi government is engaged in improving the day-to-day working of the railways, whether it is punctuality or safety. With a lot of focus, we are working on this, we have achieved great results and will get even better results in the future. I request this august house to allow this budget to be passed and be approved without any cut motion and allow this improvement in the railways,” said Vaishnaw as he closed his statement.
There has been no railway budget since 2016.
Opposition benches led by the TMC erupted in protest. TMC MP Derek O’Brien could be heard asking to raise a point of order.
However the chair, BJP MP Ghanshyam Tiwari, said that the discussion on the railways had concluded and announced the beginning of the discussion on the Manipur budget, with members of the TMC then staging a walkout.
“I don’t know whether to be angry, sad or feel like I am in a circus. It is a very funny afternoon, but this is very serious. The railway minister participated in a discussion on the ministry of railways. At the end of the discussion, he is talking about passing the railway budget. This actually happened,” said O’Brien outside parliament.
He continued: “I don’t want to get too technical, but we wanted to raise a point of order for this to be correct. He said he was passing the railway budget. Prime Minister Modi and his ministers come to the TMC. We will give you free tutorials and we will give you tuition on the rules of parliament. We were not allowed to speak.
“It is a disgrace; you don’t even know what you’re discussing, you are saying it is the railway budget.”
O’Brien said that the TMC MPs also wanted to say that the railway budgets of opposition-ruled states like West Bengal, Kerala and Tamil Nadu have been reduced in comparison to those of BJP-ruled states like Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra, but were not allowed to speak.
Shiv Sena MP Priyanka Chaturvedi in a statement on X accused Vaishnaw of not knowing the difference between the working of the railway ministry and the railway budget.
“Our railway minister doesn’t know the difference between a discussion on the working of railway ministry versus [the] railway budget ~ which has been discontinued by the Modi government since 2016 and has been subsumed in the Union budget!” she wrote.
“Today in the conclusion of his speech in the parliament[, the] minister asked for the railway budget to be passed by the Rajya Sabha! That’s an authority the Rail Minister lost long ago sadly!”
Earlier during the discussion, while opposition members had flagged slow recruitment to the railways and safety concerns amid increasing railway accidents, Vaishnaw pointed to the previous United Progressive Alliance (UPA) regime and said both safety and recruitments have increased under the Modi government.
“In the last ten years, over five lakh people have been employed by the railways, which was four lakh under the UPA. Today as we speak, the recruitment of another one lakh people is ongoing,” he said.
Vaishnaw said that there has been a 90% reduction in rail accidents in the last decade in comparison to the UPA government and “more work is being done now than ever before”.
“There is a laser-sharp focus on railway safety. Many technical changes have been made in the railways. Longer rails, electronic interlocking, level crossing gates, fog safety devices and ‘Kavach’ are being rolled out rapidly. Now more work is being done than ever before, the results of which are visible,” he said.
