In an unprecedented move that railway experts say amounts to “surrendering to protesters”, the Railway Board on Friday has cancelled over 250 trains connecting New Delhi and Hazrat Nizamuddin stations with destinations across the country ahead of a protest planned by the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) on October 10, demanding the removal of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar.
“The decision to cancel so many trains amounts to surrendering to the protesters. He said there had been instances of one or two trains being cancelled due to agitations in the past, but never so many at once. It was only during the COVID-19 pandemic that train operations were stopped due to the lockdown. Because of a protest, Mishra said, otherwise, cancellations on such a large scale have never happened, particularly.
It is very unfortunate,” said Subodh Jain, former Member (Engineering) of the Railway Board. He said the abrupt cancellations had caused huge inconvenience to thousands of passengers, many of whom might be travelling for urgent medical reasons, work or family gatherings.
They wait for their journeys, many of which are urgent, and all of a sudden, trains are cancelled without any valid explanation. “I would call it a knee-jerk reaction, taken without considering its adverse impact on passengers’ interests. Many passengers book tickets 60 days in advance.
If the government wanted to stop protesters from coming to Delhi, it could have adopted several other measures rather than harassing passengers, said Basant Kumar Shukla, secretary of the Nagpur-based passenger group Bhartiya Yatri Kendra. M Jameel Ahamed, chairman of the Coimbatore District Railway Passengers’ Welfare Association, said the number of passengers affected was so large that the adverse impact could continue to affect reservation availability for several days. Such a move is unexpected from a national transporter,” Ahamed said. “This is a strange logic,” a retired railway official said.
