Former state minister and firebrand MLA from Bhagalpur, Ashwini Kumar Choubey, has threatened to stall train movement from Bhagalpur if the Centre continues to ignore pending projects like a new railway division in the district.

Talking to The Telegraph on Thursday night before proceeding to Patna, he said the central and state governments were both responsible for the delay in many pending rail projects in the region.

He said the long-awaited demand for establishing a separate railway division at Bhagalpur has been ignored by the governments as well as railway authorities concerned. “The Indian Railway earns huge revenue from Bhagalpur and its adjoining areas, which helps to run the Malda division. If the divisional office does not come up, movement of trains from Bhagalpur would be stopped,” Choubey announced.

Choubey said schemes like doubling of tracks from Bhagalpur to Barharwa stations, completion of Sultanganj-Deoghar project and others, were defunct since long despite announcements by the railway.

“I rang the pagla ghanti (alarm bell) here on November 19 to wake up officials from their slumber and repair the roads. The Bhagalpur district magistrate assured me that the roads would be repaired within 10 days. However, no repair work has started,” he said.

He added that if the district administration does not initiate repair work immediately, a massive movement would be organised soon.