BJP hails white paper on Indian Railways financial status
New Delhi:The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), on Friday welcomed the white paper regarding the financial status of the Indian Railways which was presented in the parliament. Speaking
to the media, party spokesperson Shahnawaz Hussain, said his party would study
the white paper in detail and ascertain if Lalu Prasad Yadav had indulged in jugglery
of figures to manipulate the profit. His contention was that Yadav also happened
to be the Railway Minister during the first regime of Congress-led United Progressive
Alliance (UPA) while Mamata Banerjee is also a minister in the successive UPA
government. "Laluji used to say that Railways made a profit of rupees 90,000 crore
during his tenure. It was jugglery with figures. He was Railway Minister in the
UPA one government headed by Manmohan Singh. If Railway Minister of UPA-two has
brought out a white paper against the Railways Minister of UPA-one, we will study
it," Hussain said. Meanwhile, reacting to the white paper, former Railway Minister
Lalu Prasad Yadav said his figures of profit were not been challenged in the white
paper. "I am stating that figure (profit) of rupees 90,000 crore (rupees 900 billion
that I quoted in Parliament has not been challenged by this white paper," noted
Lalu Prasad. Yadav had claimed that he turned a loss making venture into a profitable
one during his tenure between 2004 and 2009.
