Lalu Yadav’s Chetawani Rally against Nitish Kumar govt on Oct 28 at the Gandhi Maidan here is proving to be a Herculean task for the railways.
PATNA: Railway Minister Lalu Yadav’s Chetawani Rally against the Nitish Kumar government on October 28 at the Gandhi Maidan here is proving to be a Herculean task for the railways.
The Lalu Yadav’s Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) has officially requisitioned 34 special trains from the East Central Railway (ECR) Zone on October 27 and 28 to ferry its supporters from different parts of Bihar and Jharkhand. According to sources, it is an unprecedented requisition in the annals of Indian railways.
But the railway board had no other option but to readily grant permission to run such a large number of special trains for a political event. While Lalu Yadav is busy travelling across the state, in the name of attending railways functions, to invite people to come to the rally, the officials of ECR headquarters and Danapur Division are on their toes making arrangements for the record number of special trains.
Although, no senior railway officer was ready to go on record, the general manager ECR, Girish Bhatnagar, and divisional manager of Danapur, BD Garg, were busy holding marathon meetings to arrange bogies, engine and other logistics for the special trains. Each special train would have a load combination of 18 bogies.
As per the action plan being worked out by the railways, all goods train in the ECR would be cancelled for two days in order to provide their engines for the special trains.
The big problem being faced by the railway officials is to park such a large number of trains coming to Patna for two days. As per plans till date, the special trains would begin their journey from different parts of the state and also Ranchi and Dhanbad (in Jharkhand) to Patna from 6pm on October 27 and continue till ( 9am on October 28).
Since there was no marshalling yard nor any third line at the Patna Junction to park so many trains at a time, special arrangements were being made to accommodate these trains at different stations in between Bihta and Fatuha.
But what has been making the officials jittery is non-payment of the requisite security money and booking amount for these trains so far. Party spokesman Shyam Rajak said that the payments about Rs 1.50 crore would be made by all the district units soon. The charge for a special train from Ranchi-Patna-Ranchi would come to about Rs6 lakh.
The railways charge at least 50% of the amount in advance as a deposit. Lalu Yadav had held many such rallies while in power for 15 years in Bihar. But the Chetawani Rally being held on October 28 was going to be the first rally by his party after being ousted from Power.
Lalu had also announced to reward the maximum crowd seekers with party ticket in the forthcoming election besides cash reward of Rs5,000 coining catchy slogans against Nitish Kumar government.
On the other hand, the ruling JD(U) has charged Lalu Yadav with brazen misuse of railway men and machinery for political gains. JD(U) spokesman Shivanand Tiwary told DNA that Lalu was not only misusing the railway resources but also choppers of the IAF.
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