NEW DELHI: The three-train accident at Balasore in Odisha on June 2, besides being one of the worst in the country in the recent years, is also the most politicised railway mishap with the opposition launching a no-holds-barred attack on the Narendra Modi government while the ruling BJP leaders resorting to a counter-attack on their political adversaries.
Also See: Odisha Train Accident Live
What may be unprecedented, politics started within 24 hours of the Shalimar-Chennai Central Coromandel Express, Bengaluru-Howrah Superfast Express and a goods train colliding around 7 pm on June 2, killing 288 people and injuring about 1000.
Railways minister Ashwini Vaishnaw reached the accident site early on June 3 to monitor the rescue and relief operations. He said a high-level inquiry would be ordered into the accident.
Prime Minister Modi also reached Balasore to take stock of the situation later in the day. He subsequently visited Cuttack to meet the injured passengers in the hospital. The guilty would not be spared, he said.
On June 5, Vaishnaw announced that the railway board had decided to recommend a CBI inquiry into the accident.
However, on the other side, politics had already started brewing. Trinamool Congress (TMC) supremo and West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee first announced on June 2 that she was monitoring the situation and that a five to six-member team of her party would visit Balasore to take stock of the situation.
Congress general secretary K C Venugopal declared that party president Mallikarjun Kharge had deputed leader of the party in the Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury and All India Congress Committee (AICC) in-charge A Chella Kumar to “immediately visit the train crash site to take stock of the situation and oversee relief efforts being undertaken by INC (Indian National Congress) workers and its frontal organisations”.
But politics over the accident had already started in less than 24 hours of the accident. Majority of those involved in the slugfest are former railway ministers – such as Kharge, Chowdhury, Bhakt Charan Das, Mamata Banerjee, Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar and Rashtriya Janata Dal supremo Lalu Prasad.
The Congress leaders even accused Modi and Vaishnaw of indulging in photo-opportunity by visiting Balasore. "Traasdi mein avsar" (Opportunity in tragedy), they said.
"Vulture politics!" the BJP shot back.
Government baiters
Mamata Banerjee reached Balasore on June 3 and what followed was an unprecedented incident. In the presence of Union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan and a large number of senior railway officials, she was seen indulging in a spat with Vaishnaw.
She said, “I have heard that there could even be 500 (dead bodies) in this. We have not been able to reach three coaches.”
Vaishnaw interrupted her and said searches in all have been completed. Asked by Mamata, Vaishnaw said the official number of fatalities given out officially by the Odisha government was 238.
Mamata joined issues with the railway minister and said, “But the information which I have is we have not been able to reach three coaches so far.”
Vaishnaw again corrected her and said, “(We) Have taken out, have completely cleared, Didi.”
On June 4, Mamata held a press conference in Kolkata and again questioned the number of fatalities. She said 62 persons from Bengal had died in Friday’s railway accident and apprehended that the number might rise as 182 others from the state were missing.
She claimed that the accident could have been averted had the railways installed an anti-collision device (Kavach). "Daal mein kuchh kaala hai (There was something suspicious in the case),” she added.
The Congress too, within 24 hours of the accident, clearly said they would raise questions over the mishap the next day.
Rajya Sabha MP and in-charge of Congress’s communications Jairam Ramesh said in a tweet on the morning of June 3, “The rail crash in Odisha is truly horrendous. It is a matter of the greatest anguish. It reinforces why safety should always be the foremost priority in the functioning of the rail network. There are many legitimate questions that need to be raised but that should wait till tomorrow.”
On June 3 itself, Kharge posted a video clip and said the rail mishap was no less than a national tragedy. Paying his tributes to the victims, he said there were several questions to ask from the prime minister and the railway minister for which one could wait. Immediate relief and rescue operations were needed at the moment, he added.
On June 4, Ramesh announced the Congress’s immediate plan to corner the government. “Yesterday we were quiet out of respect. Today at 12 noon my colleagues
Shaktisinh Gohil and Pawan Khera will ask searching questions of the Modi government on railway management, especially on safety that has been compromised in the PR campaign of the PM and the railway minister.”
In a veiled demand for Vaishnaw’s resignation, Ramesh asked people to recall that Lal Bahadur Shastri resigned in the wake of the November 1956 Ariyalur train disaster and Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar did so following the August 1999 Gaisal train tragedy in West Bengal.
This was followed by the press interaction of Congress spokespersons Shaktisinh Gohil and Pawan Khera who also issued a statement later in the day demanding the resignation of Vaishnaw. They alleged criminal neglect of "signalling system despite multiple warnings", and parliamentary standing committee "slamming railway board for not following safety procedures" among other accusations.
Their joint statement said, "Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who has announced the guilty would be punished, must first start with his railway minister. Unequivocally and unambiguously, we demand the resignation of the Union railway minister, Shri Ashwini Vaishnaw. Nothing short of it."
In the evening, former Congress president Rahul Gandhi, who is on a visit to the US, also demanded the railway minister’s resignation. In a tweet in Hindi, he said, “No accountability even after 270+ deaths! The Modi government cannot run away from taking responsibility for such a painful accident. The prime minister should immediately seek the resignation of the railway minister!”
Venugopal issued a statement and he too demanded Vaishnaw's resignation. He said, "The Balasore train tragedy is a man-made disaster which took place because of the complete incompetence and misplaced priorities of the Union Government. The Prime Minister must take responsibility for this failure. The resignation of the Union Railway Minister is an inevitability.”
Venugopal alleged that the accident had taken place because the “Modi government failed to undertake the necessary safety and maintenance measures”.
He said, “It (The Centre) ignored multiple prior warnings about track and signal failures, including the latest one from the South Western Railways on February 9, 2023 pointing to the need to revamp signalling infrastructure. Their sole focus has been on the Prime Minister's PR through mega launch events. The government should be ashamed of what has transpired and the Prime Minister must answer to the entire nation for letting this happen under his watch."
On the CBI probe, Venugopal quoted Kharge and said the federal agency is meant to investigate crimes and not railway accidents.
On June 5, Kharge, who was a railway minister in the Congress-led UPA government, wrote a four-page letter addressed to Modi and raised 11 points. “The roping in of yet another agency without the required expertise... shows that the government has no intention to address the systemic safety malaise but is instead finding diversionary tactics to derail any attempts to fix accountability,” he said.
Raising questions over the inquiry by the investigative agency, the COngress president further said, “The CBI, or any other law enforcement agency, cannot fix accountability for technical, institutional and political failures. In addition, they lack the technical expertise in railway safety, signalling, and maintenance practices.”
On the same day, Congress spokesperson and former minister of state for railways Bhakta Charan Das addressed media persons from the party headquarters and alleged that Vande Bharat trains were being launched by the prime minister only for getting votes ahead of the 2024 election and the railway officials were not concerned about safety any longer.
Das said “This Odisha accident is clearly a result of the misgovernance of the government of India.”
A day after the accident, RJD chief Lalu Prasad alleged that the Modi government had “destroyed railways”.
He said, “The manner in which they showed negligence and did not show alertness led to such a large number of casualties… There was major negligence. They have destroyed railways."
Bihar CM Nitish Kumar, who is also a former railway minister, sought to take a moral high ground. “A train accident took place in West Bengal’s Gaisal when I was the railway minister. I immediately asked the then PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee to accept my resignation. Earlier, the Railway budget was presented separately but this new government has abolished the separate railway budget... I will not comment if railway minister Ashwini Vaishnaw should resign or not,” he said.
Defenders of Modi government
Beside the BJP leaders, Janata Dal (Secular) chief and former prime minister HD Deve Gowda defended the Modi government and Vaishnaw.
Odisha CM Naveen Patnaik, meanwhile, continued to do his bit in a low profile manner as usual. He spoke to Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the phone on June 4 and briefed him about the latest situation, particularly the treatment of injured passengers.
He told the PM that all possible steps were being taken to save the lives of the injured passengers admitted to different hospitals of the state. The doctors, medical students and other health care service providers were also doing their best, he informed the PM.
The main mantle of defending the Modi government and launching a counter attack against the critics was taken on by BJP’s co-in-charge of West Bengal Amit Malviya.
Retorting to Mamata’s spat with Vaishnaw on June 3, he said, “Just when one thinks Mamata Banerjee can’t be a further embarrassment to humanity, she surprises again.”
Malviya further said, “Mamata Banerjee is not just a disastrous chief minister, she was also a pathetic, callous and incompetent railway minister. It is West Bengal’s misfortune that she presides over the state’s destiny.”
He posted on Twitter a video clip of a train accident at Sainthia in Birbhum district of West Bengal in 2010 when Mamata was the railway minister. According to the commentary of the clip, the debris of the accident was not clear yet and the bodies awaited cremation.
“Despite this, Mamata went to Kolkata to address a rally in remembrance of the death of 13 Youth Congress workers killed in 1993 and she said ‘My main identity is not only as railway minister. I see myself as a member of each family’," according to the commentary.
Asking the opposition leaders to stop politicising the mishap, Malviya issued a “report card” of the former railway ministers demanding Vaishnaw’s resignation. During Nitish Kumar’s tenure, there were 79 collisions, 1000 derailments and 1527 deaths. During Mamata’s tenure, there were 54 collisions, 839 derailments and 1451 deaths. During Lalu Prasad’s tenure, there were 51 collisions, 550 derailments and 1159 deaths, he said.
He said, “Stop politicising the unfortunate Balasore tragedy because the track record of railway ministers, under the UPA, to put it mildly, was nothing short of a disaster. Ironically, these ‘worthies’ are the ones demanding resignation of the most qualified railway minister India has had in the seven and half decades. Let us focus on relief and rescue operations and putting life and rail back on track, at the earliest.”
Malviya, who is also the BJP’s in-charge of the BJP’s national information and technology department, alleged that Mamata’s rise in politics has been over dead bodies.
He said, “From Singur to post-poll violence of 2021, all she has done is - indulged in dirty politics of death and destruction. She is clearly frustrated after the railways minister thwarted her attempts to inflate casualty numbers (in Balasore), that too in full media glare (she had no business addressing the media when rescue operation was on besides being wrong on facts on multiple counts), prompting her to rake up the tragic train burning in Godhra, at a time when government of India is focused on providing relief and bringing things back on track. But then that is Mamata Banerjee - petty and petulant.”
BJP leader from West Bengal Dinesh Trivedi, a former railway minister during UPA rule, hit out at Mamata for her "Dal mein kuch kaala hai" comment. "Mamata Banerjee is a very senior leader and chief minister of West Bengal, and such a statement was not expected from her," he said.
Trivedi, who was earlier with the TMC before joining the BJP, advised Mamata not to politicise the Odisha train accident. He asked her to desist from "doing politics on the funeral pyre of the people killed in the accident".
He said, "When it comes to the security of the country, such matters should not be politicized. There will be many issues and time to do politics. Therefore, doing politics on the funeral pyre of the people killed in the accident does not suit her."
Trivedi alleged that the Balasore train accident was the result of a large conspiracy and noted that only the railway and CBI investigations would be able to uncover it.
He said, "The target of the conspirators was to kill passengers on a large scale, but due to the joint efforts of the Odisha government, railways, and disaster management, a large number of people could be saved."
Congress’s Ramesh attacked Trivedi for defending the Modi government. Without naming him, he said in a tweet, “A former railway minister, who held office for seven months and later defected to BJP, is coming up with cock-n-bull theories about the horrific Odisha accident. He is desperately trying to impress the BJP leadership so he can keep his Lutyens Delhi bungalow, which he has not vacated even after ceasing to be an MP 18 months ago. Pathetic!”
On June 5, BJP leader and leader of opposition in the West Bengal assembly Suvendu Adhikari alleged that the TMC was behind the Odisha train accident.
Talking to media persons, he said, “This incident is TMC’s conspiracy. They are behind the incident… Why have they been panicking so much since yesterday when this incident is from another state? Why are they afraid of the Central Bureau of Investigation investigation?”
Adhikari also referred to a purported audio clip posted by TMC leader Kunal Ghosh on Twitter on June 4 containing talks between two railway officials posted about the train accident.
He said, “These people with the help of the police tapped the phones of both the railway officials. How did these people know the conversation between two railway officials? How the conversation got leaked. This should come in the CBI investigation. If it doesn’t come, I will go to court.”
Meanwhile, former PM HD Deve Gowda defended Vaishnaw and said, “(The) railway minister has taken necessary steps to restore damage that happened. He is working tirelessly (for the last) last 55 hours… I am watching. The inquiry by CBI is different… I am not going to comment on that… Congress leaders have taken some stand. My point is that politically motivated attacks shouldn’t be made. Let the inquiry be completed. The minister is doing his best and demanding his resignation at this stage is not wise.”
Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) contradicted Congress leader Bhakt Charan Das’s allegation that the railways was suffering huge losses as cancellations had increased since the accident.
In a statement, IRCTC said, “This is factually incorrect. Cancellations have not increased. On the contrary, cancellations have reduced from 7.7 lakh on June 1, 2023 to 7.5 lakh on June 3, 2023.”
As the politics over the Balasore train accident rages, the issue is likely to be raised also in the forthcoming monsoon session of Parliament.
