Trinamul Congress chief and West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday hinted that the railway fare hike was a Congress gameplan to weaken the Trinamul Congress.
She told her party legislators that railway minister Dinesh Trivedi did not consult her before taking the decision to hike fares. Ms Banerjee was addressing the Trinamul Congress legislature party meeting in the Assembly hours before the commencement of the budget session on Thursday.
“We are not in favour of any fare hike. Every leader of our party knows about this stand. However, he took the unilateral decision to hike fares. We won’t tolerate this. He did not consult me before taking such a decision. Nor did he consult any of our party MPs. It is unfortunate. His unilateral decision has tarnished the image of the party. The entire episode was a game plan (of the Congress),” she reportedly said in the meeting.
Reminding the Trinamul Congress MLAs that no one was above the party discipline, she further added, “We won’t accept this fare hike. I was not even consulted when the Railways raised the freight charges. It can’t continue anymore.”
Ms Banerjee also told her party MLAs that this fare hike would add to the burden of the common people. “If the fare hikes happened in the higher classes or in trains like Rajdhani Express, then the larger section of the common people would not have been affected. In West Bengal, when we are running a pro-people government, we can’t support this anti-people policy. We have demanded a rollback,” she said.
Though the meeting was convened to discuss the strategy of the party in the budget session of the Assembly, it turned out to be a platform for Trivedi-bashing.