A defiant Minister of State for Railways Mukul Roy on Monday refused to heed Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's directive to visit the Guwahati-Puri Express derailment site in Assam, saying it was the Prime Minister and not he, who is in charge of the Ministry.
“I am not the Railway Minister. PM is the Railway Minister,” Mr. Roy said when asked why he had not gone to the accident spot near Rangiya, where six coaches derailed on Sunday night after a blast, injuring over 100 people.
Mr. Roy, who was earlier tipped to become Cabinet Minister for Railways, was asked by Dr. Singh in the morning to visit the site.
“I am only one of the three Ministers of State in the Railways. It is the Prime Minister who is the Railway Minister,” he told reporters in Kolkata, adding he was looking after the passengers of the ill-fated train and their relatives who were coming to Howrah. The Howrah-Kalka Mail met with an accident in Uttar Pradesh on Sunday.
Official sources said Mr. Roy, who belongs to the Trinamool Congress, told the Prime Minister's Office that the affected track had been cleared and the injured were moved to hospital and that there was nothing for him to inspect the Rangiya site.
It was not clear whether he conveyed the same to the Prime Minister.
“I have nothing to say. I suggest you to contact the General Manager of the NF Railway about this,” he said. Northeast Frontier Railway General Manager M.R. Chandra said, “The Minister [Mr. Roy] has already offered to visit the Rangiya site. But we told him that the ground reality is such that the situation is almost normal and there is no death except for some injuries.”
Congress downplays
Meanwhile, the Congress downplayed the issue saying the MoS had simply said he was far away from the spot.
Party spokesman Abhishek Singhvi said, “Mr. Roy has simply stated the fact that he was far away.” The party also dismissed suggestions that the spate of train accidents were due to the absence of a full-fledged Cabinet Minister for the Railways.
