A day after the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government hiked passenger rail fares by 14.2 per cent and freight rail fares by 6.5 per cent, opposition parties in West Bengal staged protests in various parts of the city.
Addressing a gathering at a demonstration of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) at Howrah station, Leader of the Opposition in the Assembly Surjya Kanta Mishra accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of ‘double standards’.
He said, “During the campaign for general elections, Mr. Modi had criticised the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government for falling to provide good governance and being crippled in policy paralysis. But, now Mr. Modi is aggravating the people’s suffering by hiking rail fares.” He demanded immediate and unconditional rollback of the fare hike.
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Mr. Mishra, also a Politburo member of the CPI (M), claimed in 2012, when the then Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, had decided to hike rail fares before the Rail Budget was presented in Parliament, Mr. Modi had written to Mr. Singh demanding immediate rollback of the decision as it was against the democratic norms of the country’.
“Now, Mr. Modi is taking the same decisions which he vehemently opposed before coming to power.”
He also criticised Mr. Modi for failing to provide any solution to the issue of price rise for which he went all-out against the UPA government.
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He accused Mr. Modi of trying to escape the responsibility of his decision by putting the blame on the 10-year-long misrule of the UPA government.
“Now he is speaking in the same vein as of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who to cover her government’s failure on every issue, gives the excuse of the Left Front government incurring huge debts.”
State Congress president Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury too came down on the railway fare hike and asked whether it was the good days which the BJP had promised. The Trinamool Congress on Friday had described the hike anti-people and said it would put more burden on people.
The Socialist Unity Centre of India (Communist) accused the BJP of trying to clear the deck for eventual privatisation of the railways by means of 100 per cent FDI and facilitating the entry of more private players through public-private partnership. Supporters of the party protested outside the Raj Bhavan and courted arrest.