Mamata asks PM to sack Trivedi

Angry over the hike in passenger fares in the Railway Budget, Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee tonight asked Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to remove her party nominee Dinesh Trivedi from the post of Railway Minister.

"Yes, I have written to the Prime Minister seeking his replacement with Mukul Roy, another union minister," Banerjee said.

The action of the West Bengal Chief Minister came late in the night after Trivedi's stout defence of his proposal for across-the-board increase in rail fares to net Rs 4,000 crore in the Budget.

Throughout the day, 61-year-old Trivedi had been maintaining that whatever he had done was in the interest of the railways and the country and that he was not worried out the loss of his job.

Trinamool Congress, which has been toeing a populist line on issues like petrol price hike, asked him to rollback the increase and put him on notice that it would suggest another name to the Prime Minister as his replacement in the Railway Ministry.

The party also threatened to move cut motions on the issue and had decided to meet the Prime Minister to press for rollback.

Mukul Roy, Minister of State for Shipping, is a senior leader of Trinamool Congress who had earlier held the post of Minister of State for Railways for two years till July last year.