Congress: Sack Suresh Prabhu, lay down safety map

New Delhi: The Congress hit out at the government for letting Railway minister Suresh Prabhu continue to serve the office despite repeated accidents under his command.

After the Muzaffarnagar train accident on August 19, Congress spokesman Manish Tewari demanded that the railway minister should resign on moral grounds. After the train accident in the Kaifiyat Express on Wednesday morning near Etawah in Uttar Pradesh, the Congress reiterated its stand on the issue.

Chief spokesman of the Congress Party, Randeep Singh Surjewala, accused the railway minister of having “failed utterly” in his job and asked Prime Minister Narendra Modi to immediately appoint a “responsible person” to head the Railways.

Mr Surjewala said, “First sack the railways minister. Appoint a responsible person in his position. Come forward Mr Prime Minister, lay down a railways safety map. Lay down your vision for the Railways to be implemented in the next one year.”

The Congress spokesman said that the responsibility lies with Mr Prabhu and that he should just resign without wasting time. He termed the stepping down of Railway Board chairman A.K. Mittal as the worst kind of tokenism.

The Congress chided the government by bringing up the issue of bullet trains. Mr Tewari, said, “If Modi could spend Rs 1 lakh crore on a bullet train, why couldn’t he allocate Rs 40,000 crore for the safety of the railways. We have seen platform tickets go up. We have seen passengers fare go up, but railway safety remains under a serious cloud.” The party further claimed that since the present government came to power, 28 major train accidents, and killing 259 people and injuring 973, have taken place. While the death toll due to the train derailments in 2016-17 was the highest in a decade, the party stated.

Union minister Arun Jaitley said the PM will take a decision on whatever “request” Suresh Prabhu has made.