Mamatha Banerjee, our Railway Minister blamed the public for the stamped in the Railway Platform at New Delhi Railway Station. She said the Administration could have done very little when the public behave as they did in the Station.
I am surprised at her ‘blame game’ It is not known how the Railway Administration be so ignorant about the behavioral pattern of Indian crowd traveling by the train and that too, Beharis when they are on their way to their respective villages. That apart, in our country we come to the station for the train at least one or even two hours before the departure of the train. This is vacation season and people will be traveling with their families and lot of luggage. All of them are there with one aim in mind, that is, somehow to get into the train, with or without accommodation and to reach their destination. That is why we always see how the passengers who have no reservation surge towards the general compartment when the train arrives at the platform. Here in New Delhi, the Station Administration had announced just before the arrival of the rake to the Platform that the boarding platform for the Dharbhanga train is changed to another platform. One can just imagine the anxiety of passengers who had got small children in their arms, old and infirm people jostling with other able bodied people to cross over to the other platform by crossing the over bridge. There must have been a chaos. If the Administration had not envisaged this scene this afternoon, I wonder how they can be held to be qualified to be Station Masters. It is clear that the Station Administration had failed in their basic duty. they had no vision or that they had not understood the mood of the people even after several years of service.
Therefore I say that let us not blame the ‘dumb’ public. Now the public who are alive and who could get into the compartments must have left for their native places or their destinations with a bitter experience. They may not have time to protest after reaching home because they have achieved their aim. Those who are in the hospital undergoing treatment must be cursing their stars for their fate. The dead have left us and their relations are left behind to mourn their death and feel guilty because our Railway Minister has said that the dead or the injured alone should be blamed for changing the platform at the last minute just before the departure of the train. She has passed on the buck to the victims not only to mourn but also feel guilty. Are our Ministers so cruel?