Left parties seek Ashwini Vaishnaw's sacking over New Delhi station stampede

New Delhi: Left parties on Sunday slammed the Union government over the New Delhi Railway station stampede and said prima facie it appears that mismanagement by the Railways led to the incident that snuffed out at least 18 lives.

Condoling the deaths in the Saturday night incident, the CPI(M), in a post on X, said, "Urging people to participate through an unprecedented publicity blitzkrieg and then not making necessary arrangements is the reality behind this loss of lives. Make the government accountable."

"The Railways have ordered an inquiry. Prima facie, it points to the utter mismanagement by central and state authorities," the party said on X.

CPI(M) Politburo member Brinda Karat said prima facie it makes mismanagement by authorities stark. "This is very tragic... loss of lives in the capital of India. We express our deep condolences to the family and also give our best wishes for those who are injured," she told PTI videos.

"The question is could those lives have been saved? I believe the utter mismanagement by railway authorities under the Central government is primarily responsible for this... What were the arrangements they made? They absolutely failed," Karat said.

Asserting the stampede at Maha Kumbh in Prayagraj on January 29 was "tragic", the CPI(M) leader alleged the government had concealed the number of deaths in that incident.

The CPI (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation, claimed the stampede at the New Delhi station was triggered by delays in multiple train services during the Maha Kumbh rush and is a "direct indictment of the Central government's callous mismanagement of India's Railways".

"Despite clear warnings from ticket sales data which showed 1,500 general tickets sold hourly, railway authorities failed to deploy adequate crowd control measures, leaving platforms dangerously overcrowded. Passengers, including women and children, were left to scramble for space, crushed under the weight of systemic apathy," CPI(ML) said.

"The severity of the incident was such that the first responders were the porters at the station. The rail administration didn't have emergency measures in place to deal with an incident of this magnitude," the left party said.

It also said, "Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, whose focus is primarily on PR management and content creation, has failed to strengthen railway safety and administration."

Further slamming Vaishnaw, the CPI(ML) said, "The abject failure of his leadership and his gross failure in strengthening administrative mechanism has repeatedly led to common people losing their lives in ever-increasing train accidents."

The Left party demanded Vaishnaw's immediate sacking as railway minister.

It also alleged that both Uttar Pradesh and the Union governments under the BJP have failed to ensure a safe Maha Kumbh. "It is time that the double-engine government is held responsible for people's miseries and deaths due to its gross mismanagement," it said.

A senior railway official said on Sunday that the incident occurred after some passengers slipped and fell on others while coming down from a footover bridge.

More than a dozen people were also injured in the stampede on Saturday night at the railway station which witnessed a surge of passengers waiting to board trains for Prayagraj -- where the Maha Kumbh is underway -- on platform number 14 and 15 of the station.

Northern Railway's Chief Public Relations Officer (CPRO) Himanshu Upadhyay said that at the time of the incident, the Patna-bound Magadh Express was standing at platform number 14 and the New Delhi-Jammu Uttar Sampark Kranti Express was stationed at platform number 15.

"Some people who were coming down from the footover bridge towards platform numbers 14 and 15 using stairs slipped and fell on others," he said, citing the cause of the stampede.