CPI submits breach of privilege motion in RS against Ashwini Vaishnaw

CPI floor leader in Rajya Sabha P Sandosh Kumar on Monday submitted a breach of privilege motion against Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, accusing him of misleading the House by providing figures contradictory to the ministry's own data submitted earlier to the House.

According to a statement issued by the CPI, the ministry, in response to a question raised by CPI MP P P Suneer on safety of railway workers, provided the number of 65 deaths and 569 injuries from 2014-15 to 2023-24, a period of 10 years.

However, in an earlier reply in Rajya Sabha on December 8, 2023, the ministry said that 361 railway workers died due to train accidents during maintenance work on rail tracks in the last five years (from 2019-20 to 27.11.2023), the statement said.

The CPI said the ministry's reply on Monday sharply contradict the figures provided by it earlier in the Rajya Sabha.

The party said in a sub-question of the raised question, Suneer had asked for the zone-wise details of the number of deaths and injuries involving railway personnel, including regular employees, contractual workers and outsourced workforce, during construction, maintenance, inspection or coupling of trains in the last three years.

"The ministry's reply of 65 deaths is in sharp contradiction to their own admission in the Rajya Sabha made in December 2023," the CPI said.

It said according to the railway ministry's own data provided in the Rajya Sabha in response to unstarred question number 764 by A A Rahim, answered on December 8, 2023, the ministry gave the number of railway workers who died due to train accidents during maintenance work on railway tracks in the last five years (from 2019-20 to 27.11.2023) as 361.

"The data given by the railway ministry for ten years in response to PP Suneer's question is significantly lower than their own admission of 361 deaths in a five-year period from 2019-2023," the CPI said.

Sandosh Kumar, meanwhile, said there appears to be a serious gap in the numbers provided by the railway ministry in two separate statements given in the Rajya Sabha.

"It is also apparent from the wide mismatch in the number of deaths of railway workers that the ministry's approach to this serious issue is callous and lacklustre," Sandosh Kumar said.

The CPI leader added that due to the misleading nature of information provided to the House on a grave issue like workers' safety, he, on behalf of the CPI, submitted a breach of privilege motion against Vaishnaw.