After the hapless rail accident involving a goods train, the Chennai Coromandel Express, and the Yashwantpur-Howrah Express in the evening of 2nd June, West Bengal Chief Minister and former Railways Minister, Mamata Banjerjee, reached Balasore, Odisha, and speaking to the media, brazenly tried to manipulate the death statistics of the tragedy, which could lead to more panic. And this shockingly happened when she was standing right next to the current Union Railway Minister, Ashwini Vaishnaw.
Talking about the number of deaths, Banerjee said, “I have heard that the number of deaths can be 500, and the rescue operation from 3 coaches has still not been completed”. To this, Vaishnaw interjected and clarified that the rescue operation had already been completed, to which Banerjee then asked Vaishnaw as to what the death toll was after the completion of the same. And citing the preliminary report, the railways minister answered 238. It is noteworthy that after this, the number has gone up to 261.
Despite Vaishnaw clarifying that the rescue operation had been completed, Mamata Banerjee continued to repeat that as per the information she has, 3 coaches were still left for the operation. Continuing to politicize the tragedy, Banerjee further said that it is needed to treat the Railways ‘specially’, and without which, there has emerged a ‘co-ordination’ gap. “There was a status for 8 cabinet ministers in the Railways, but now there is not even proper allocation of budget for the ministry. I think that there is a co-ordination gap in the railways”, she added.
The West Bengal CM continued, “I have worked as the railway minister thrice, and as per whatever I have seen till now, I can say that this is the major most incident of the century. Another major accident had taken place back in 1981 in Bihar. And during my tenure too, the Maoists had executed an accident, and I had handed over the investigation to the CID, but did not receive a result till date. The thing is, there is a Railway Safety Commission, and whenever an accident of this sort happens, the investigation is handed over to them”.
“When I was the railway minister, I had prepared an ‘anti-collision’ device, and had myself gone to Margao, Goa. Train accidents had then reduced. The anti-collision device helped stopped the trains if they came together on the same line, or if one train was stationery ahead, or it could even alert the loco-pilot if he fell asleep. But when the railway minister is here himself, I will just say that you see, there was no anti-collision device in the train here, as far as I know”, asserted Mamata.
“If anti-collision device was in place, this incident would not have happened”, she stated.
