Happy to cooperate with Centre, request Railway Minister to look into inconsistencies: Shiv Sena's Priyanka Chaturvedi

Shiv Sena leader Priyanka Chaturvedi on Monday said that the state government is happy to cooperate with the Centre and urged Railway Minister Piyush Goyal to look into all the inconsistencies as far as train travel is concerned.

"The way it has been politicised is extremely unfortunate by the Railway Minister and his overnight decision, that within half an hour we need to give him a list of passengers that would be carried in the 125 trains along with with their health certificates, I think it goes against the spirit of federalism that we have been speaking about, and the spirit of cooperation that is much needed during the times of COVID," Chaturvedi said.

"I would request and urge the Railway Minister to please look into all the inconsistencies as far as the Rail travel is concerned. Over 40 Shramik trains that have gone in a different direction from where they were intended to go. The destinations changed overnight. There are also trains which took off from Lokmanya Tilak Terminus and have taken four days to reach their destination fighting heavy traffic on those routes," she added.

Chaturvedi said that keeping all these things in mind Goyal "should be speaking in favour of how things can be better orgsed and streamlined rather than making it political and demanding the state government to provide all the details within half an hour."

"We would be happy to cooperate with the Centre, but we are hoping the same spirit is also shown by the Centre," she added.

This comes after Piyush Goyal stated that the Maharashtra government did not provide the details of 125 Shramik special trains, which were scheduled to run in the state on Monday and its list of passengers.

In a series of tweets on Sunday evening, the minister asked Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray to provide details but said that the state government did not respond to the request till late night.

"Uddhav Ji, hope you are healthy. Tomorrow we are ready to provide 125 Shramik special train from Maharashtra. You told that you have a list of workers ready. I hope that the Government of Maharashtra will cooperate fully in the efforts made for the benefit of these workers," Goyal tweeted.

"All information, such as where the train will run, the list of passengers according to the trains, their medical certificate and where the train is to go, please inform all the information to the General Manager of Central Railway in the next hour, so that we can plan the time of trains," he said.

"It is 12 o'clock in the night and even after 5 hours, we have not received the details and passenger lists of yesterday's 125 trains from the Government of Maharashtra. I have ordered the officials to wait and continue the preparations," he said in another tweet.

Goyal stated that Maharashtra government claimed to have given a list of 200 trains to Indian Railways.

"It was revealed through TV that the Maharashtra government claimed to have given a list of 200 trains to Indian Railways. But the list of passengers of a single train running tomorrow has not come to GM Central Rail even after following up. Please be pleased to give the lists soon," he tweeted.

( With inputs from ANI )