NDA executes UPA fare plan?

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)'s reported claim on Friday that the decision on the railway freight and fare rise stemmed from a similar proposal in the interim Railway Budget presented earlier by the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government has snowballed into a political controversy.

The actual sequence of events in the run-up to Friday's fare and freight hike decision is somewhat different and points to political bickering between the Congress and the BJP over hard decisions and the political class's reluctance to own up such unpopular moves.

Congress sources said there was no reference to any fare or freight rise in the interim Budget. The sources said it was one of the outgoing government's last decisions, when then Railway Minister Mallikarjun Kharge's ministry issued a notification on May 16, incidentally, the day of counting of votes, to effect a freight and fare hike. However, the notification was withdrawn by that evening when it became evident that the UPA had been voted out of power.

According to people in the know, the UPA government had directed that a freight and fare rise decision could be taken after the election results, ostensibly in view of the Election Commission's code of conduct in operation at that time. This is what was believed to have prompted the railways to issue the fare and freight rise order and then hastily withdraw it as the UPA leadership realised it was facing defeat and bowing out of office. The BJP-led government dusted up the same proposal and announced it on Friday.