Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Aditya Thackeray trained his guns on Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw after nine people were injured in a stampede at Western Railway's Bandra Terminus in Mumbai on Sunday morning.
In a social media post, Thackeray said the incident at Bandra reflects how “incapable” the current railways minister is.
"Wish the reel minister was a rail minister for once. The incident at Bandra only reflects how incapable the current Railways Minister is. The BJP has made Ashwini Vaishnav ji a Prabhari for BJP Maharashtra for elections, but every week there are some incidents and accidents that occur with the railways,” he wrote on X.
“Such a shame that our country has been forced under such incapable ministers," he added.
Festival rush: 9 injured in stampede at Mumbai's Bandra railway station
Thackeray’s party colleague Sanjay Raut said Vaishnaw was too busy with the bullet train project while passengers in Mumbai were being ignored.
"Mumbai city gives maximum revenue to the Union government. Compared to it, we hardly get any facilities here for passengers. The railway minister is too involved with the bullet train project and people are left to die because of the poor infrastructure as the railway minister is disconnected with their problems," Raut said.
He further alleged that since the third term of the new Union government commenced, at least 25 major railway accidents have taken place.
The heavily-patronised railway station witnessed chaos and cacophony around 2.45 am when passengers rushed to board the unreserved 22921 Bandra-Gorakhpur Antyodaya Express while it was moving into platform number 1.
Kavaraipettai train accident: Southern Railway beefs up security at key sections in Chennai division
Even though the train’s scheduled departure was only at 5.10 am, the festival rush prompted several passengers to scurry to occupy seats as quickly as possible.
Videos of the chaotic scenes flooded social media by the morning, with many of them showing injured passengers laying on the ground.
Those injured have been identified as habhir Abdul Rehman (40), Parmeshwar Sukhdar Gupta (28), Ravindra Harihar Chuma (30), Ramsevak Ravindra Prasad Prajapati (29), Sanjay Tilakram Kangay (27), Divyanshu Yogendra Yadav (18), Mohammad Shareef Shaikh (25), Indrajith Sahani (19) and Noor Mohammad Shaikh.