The railway ministry on Saturday afternoon tweeted that “after request of Hon’ble HM” (home minister), the Bengal government approved eight trains for migrants, seeking to give credit to Amit Shah who had apparently sent a complaint to the state government on Friday evening.
But Bengal home secretary Alapan Bandopadhyay responded with a tweet: “Ministry of Railways tweet is misleading and incorrect. All the trains mentioned in their tweet were approved and communicated to the concerned states on 8 May (yesterday) or before, no new decision in this regard has been taken today. Further decisions to follow in due course.”
Veteran officials in Bengal said they could not recall any recent instance in which the railway ministry had made public statements against a state government to save the face of a minister who has no connection with the utility.
Around 9pm on Saturday, the railway ministry had tweeted: “Today afternoon WB has approved 2 trains from Punjab, 2 from TN, 3 from Karnataka & 1 from Telangana, which are being arranged.”
On Friday, Shah had sent a letter to chief minister Mamata Banerjee, reportedly complaining that the Bengal government was not allowing migrant trains to reach the state.
After giving credit to the home minister, the railway ministry did not forget to add: “However, WB has not approved any train from Maharashtra, while there is a requirement of 16 trains to WB and presently 6 requests are pending for which approval is still awaited from WB.”