JOIN USSuresh Prabhu will not be the first Railway Minister to offer to quit holding responsibility for train mishaps though two accidents in less than one week has led to one of the biggest shakeups in the Railways Ministry.
In 1956, Lal Bahadur Shastri, the then Railway Minister, had resigned after taking moral responsibility for a train accident at Ariyalur in Tamil Nadu, which caused 150 deaths. Nitish Kumar resigned as Railway Minister taking moral responsibility of the Gaisal train disaster in Assam in August 1999 that had killed at least 290 people. (But Nitish was back as the Rail Minister in 2001.)
Mamata Banerjee had also offered to resign in 2000 after two train disasters, but her offer was rejected by then Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee.
This time, Prabhu’s reasons are also because Prime Minister Narendra Modi wants the top rail officials to take the rap. Two major train accidents in less than seven days put a major dent in the reputation of the railways and Suresh Prabhu.
There have been over 20 rail accidents, including minor ones, since November 2014, when Prabhu took office. The total number of “consequential accidents” since 2014-15 stands at 346 accidents.