Goa Congress president Shantaram Naik said on Friday that Prime Minister Narendra Modi should stop making empty boasts about his efficacy and take over the Railways portfolio if he wanted to prove his capability as an administrator.
In a statement issued soon after 23 people were killed in a stampede at Mumbai’s Elphinstone Road station, the former Goa Rajya Sabha MP questioned the need to spend crores of rupees on the bullet train project when existing rail infrastructure in India was poor.
Mr. Naik said, “If Modi takes over the Railways, he will have to judge himself on merit and resign as Prime Minister if a tragedy takes place.” Mr. Naik added, “The Prime Minister who thinks of taking loans worth crores of rupees to start a bullet train has no right to be in office when railway infrastructure is crying for improvement and thousands of citizens sleep on railway platforms and footpaths.”
