Indian Railway Minister Dinesh Trivedi on Thursday denied media reports on his resignation hot on the heels of his party Trinamool Congress chief’s demand for sacking him after had hiked passenger train fare.
Trivedi however made it clear that he would resign the moment Prime Minister Manmohan Singh or Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee asks him to do, our New Delhi correspondent reports.
Trivedi said he would have to answer questions in the parliament on Thursday and he would be doing that.
“I will not leave my duty,” he told Bengali news channel Star Ananda when asked about media reports that he had already resigned. Trivedi is a lawmaker of Trinamool Congress.
The minister said either the Prime Minister or Mamata Banerjee has to tell him to resign. “It will not take me a minute to go,” he said.
His remarks to media persons outside the parliament Thursday morning came hours after Mamata faxed a letter to the prime minister demanding that industrialist-cum-politician Trivedi be dismissed and her trusted aide Mukul Roy be appointed as the new railway minister.
Mukul Roy is at present junior minister in the shipping ministry and was divested of his railway portfolio as junior minister last year.
Mamata’s letter to Singh came soon after Trivedi had effected an across-the-border hike in passenger train fare in the rail budget presented in the parliament, which drew strong condemnation from Trinamool Congress including the West Bengal chief minister.
“We cannot accept this rail fare hike. We will not allow the fare to be hiked,” Mamata told a public meeting at Nandigram in East Midnapore district Wednesday evening.
India’s Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee told the Lok Sabha that the prime minister had not received any resignation letter from Trivedi.
“As and when any new information comes and as and when appropriate action is taken, it will be shared with Parliament,” Mukherjee told the Lok Sabha Thursday morning in reply to questions from opposition BJP about Trivedi’s status.
The Prime Minister was quoted by Times Now news channel as saying that he might consider Mamata’s request for replacing Trivedi as and when something like this develops.
Meanwhile, Trivedi justified his budget on Wednesday in which he proposed a hike in passenger fare.
What he had done was in the interest of the railways and the country, he said, adding that he, as a disciplined soldier of the party, “will abide by whatever the leader says and the discipline of the party”.
Trivedi had said Wednesday that Mamata did not know that he was going to hike the rail fare.
In view of Mamata’s demand for replacing Trivedi, the top leaders of Congress, including the prime minister, Congress party chief Sonia Gandhi and Pranab Mukherjee, had a meeting among themselves late Wednesday night.
Congress sources said it was felt at that meeting that since Railway portfolio was with Trinamool Congress, the second biggest constituent of India’s ruling UPA with 19 members in Lok Sabha and providing crucial life-and-blood support to the coalition government, it was the prerogative of Mamata-led party to decide who will be the minister of that ministry.
This was the first time in eight years that a proposal was made to hike rail passenger fare to help tide over the acute fund constraint of India's biggest public sector undertaking that employs 1.4 million people.
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