New Delhi: Barely hours after India’s Railway Minister Sadananda Gowda announced the highly-anticipated budget on Tuesday, Congress workers took to the streets of Delhi protesting against it.
Shouting slogans and calling the budget as ‘anti-poor’, Congress workers protested outside Gowda’s residence.
The protesters reached Gowda's 1, Tyagraj marg residence around 3 pm and raised slogans against Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Gowda. They also demanded immediate rollback of the recent rail fare hike.
The protest took an ugly turn when Congress leader Mukesh Sharma removed the brass plaque outside Gowda’s house and stood over it.
Sharma was ‘scolded’ by Congress leader Arvinder Singh Lovely who said that the party believes in peaceful protests.
"We must protest peacefully, removing the nameplate of the Railways Minister and stopping his car is wrong. I instantly scolded my workers," said Arvinder Singh Lovely, a senior Congress leader.
Union minister Piyush Goyal also described the Congress as an ‘immature opposition.’ Yesterday, Congress leaders had tried to gherao Parliament House to protest over the issue of price rise and rail fare hike, but were prevented from doing so due to heavy security in the area.
We must protest peacefully, removing nameplate of Rail min and stopping his car is wrong,I instantly scolded my workers-AS Lovely,Congress
— ANI (@ANI_news) July 8, 2014Meanwhile, Gowda has announced plans to introduce a bullet train in Mumbai-Ahmedabad sector and setting up of a Diamond Quadrilateral network of high speed rail connecting major metros and growth centres. A sum of Rs 100 crore has been provided for initiating the project.
Increasing the speed of trains to 160 to 200 kms per hour on nine select sectors was another highlight of the budget, which proposes to allow all experimental stoppages to lapse after September this year.
The Budget disclosed that traffic growth declined and expenditures went up in 2013-14 as compared to the revised estimates of previous financial year.
Five Jansadharan trains are being introduced along with five premium trains, six AC express trains and 27 express trains and eight passenger trains.
The premium trains are between Mumbai Central and New Delhi, Shalimar-Chennai, Secundarabad-Hazrat Nizamuddin, Jaipur-Madurai and Kamakhya-Bangalore.
In order to strengthen security in trains and stations, the budget proposes to recruit 4000 women RPF constables. Already 17000 RPF constables have been recruited and shall be available for deployment shortly.
Here is how Twitter reacted to Mukesh Sharma's nameplate act:
I'm stomping on your visiting card. Main bhi Mukesh Sharma, jee haan.
— WolfMomma (@wolfmiaow) July 8, 2014Mukesh Sharma updated "Just had a Vijay Jolly moment" and Shoma Chaudhury liked it.
— EngiNerd. (@mainbhiengineer) July 8, 2014For a moment I thought that Mukesh Sharma is trying to change the name in the name-plate to "Sanjay Gandhi Indira Gandhi Gowda"
— Bhak Sala (@bhak_sala) July 8, 2014This Mukesh Sharma protest seems like he didn't think it through. I WILL TAKE OFF HIS NAME PLATE AND…uh..ummm…okay let me stand on top of it
— Khamba (@gkhamba) July 8, 2014Mukesh Sharma showing off his WWE title after beating John Cena pic.twitter.com/EsCBEpuWNM
— Gaurav (Yellow) (@bwoyblunder) July 8, 2014Mukesh Sharma stood on the nameplate maybe to showoff his new Zara shoes.
— Anurag Verma (@kitAnurag) July 8, 2014
