Nitish would have sold out rlys: Lalu

PATNA: Rail minister Lalu Prasad could not wait for even 24 hours after the Coromandel Express mishap in Orissa and put state politics ahead of
everything, training his guns at his predecessor and Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar at a press meet ostensibly called to discuss the interim rail budget. A fresh accident at Sugauli in Bihar was also no deterrent for Lalu.

The RJD chief tried his best to run down his arch political rival Nitish. "I would like to thank railway employees for helping me take the railways out of the `rut and mud' (read mess) that Nitish had left it in," he said pointing out that the railways were able to earn profits despite not hiking fares and implementing the Sixth Pay Commission recommendations.

"Nitish would have sold out the railways had a `secular' party not come to power," Lalu said taking exception to the Bihar CM's comment that Lalu's vote-on-account was an election stunt. "Nitish has inaugurated projects worth Rs 95.000 crore when the annual Plan size of Bihar is only Rs 13,500 crore," Lalu said. "The railways never cheat as far as projects are concerned. We are the largest investor in Bihar and have given projects worth Rs 55,000 crore to the state," he said.

The rail minister recalled that five years ago he had promised to come up with a surplus of Rs one lakh crore. "But there was global economic slowdown last year. Still we have achieved a surplus of Rs 90,000 crore. This amount can be checked with the RBI's balance sheet. It is not jugglery of numbers," he said.

He denied that he favoured Bihar in his budgets. "Trains run across several states and everybody benefits," he said. He also refuted the charge that he had done nothing for Mumbai. "The sixth line is being laid there," he said adding that Rs 5,000 crore had been given for Mumbai railway projects.

Lalu also replied to Nitish's charge that a feasibility report of the bullet train had been prepared during Indira Gandhi's regime and it was found to be non-viable. "There is no such report," he said.

He also refuted Nitish's charges that nothing was done for passenger safety and that goods trains were overloaded thus increasing pressure on tracks. Lalu claimed that the income generated by the railways was because he had checked irregualrities in goods transportation.

Source : Times of India