AAP's Aatish Marlena hits back at Metro Man, calls letter 'political'

AAP leader Atishi Marlena Friday criticised 'Metro Man' E Sreedharan's comments on Delhi Government's free ride for women in metro scheme by calling the letter he sent to Delhi Deputy CM 'political'.

Ex Delhi Metro chief E Sreedharan sent a letter to Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia where he stated that Delhi Metro was facing a huge debt of Rs 35,000 crore debt and free travel for women in the metro would further aggravate the 'heavy debt burden'.

“I am not opposing the Delhi government’s proposal to bear the cost of free travel for women, but only objecting to the concept of free travel on the Metro”, he stated in the letter.

Last week, Manish Sisodia wrote a letter to Sreedharan saying, "I am surprised and pained to read your letter addressed to the Prime Minister, in which you have opposed the Delhi government's proposal to bear the cost of allowing free ridership for women in the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) trains."

The Deputy Chief Minister also claimed, "By Delhi Metro's own admission, free ridership for women will increase women ridership by 50 percent. Delhi Metro should celebrate this rather than oppose it. Even after providing free ridership for women, DMRC daily ridership will go up by only three lakhs on a daily basis, which will still be much less than the designed capacity of 40 lakhs."

Marlena said that Sreedharan's response to Manish Sisodia was political and that he was being used by Bharatiya Janata Party to spread their message.

According to a report in PTI, Aatishi Marlena said, " “I want to ask when last year, the Centre proposed to make metro rides free for senior citizens and students, why did not he raise any objection?”, 

The AAP leader said that if financial irregularities were taking place during the construction of the Delhi metro station, E Sreedharan who was then in charge of Delhi Metro should have raised his voice and conducted a CBI inquiry into the matter.

She claimed that BJP was using E Sreedharan as a political pawn to protect the administrators involved in the alleged scam.