Mayawati terms rail fare hike as 'anti-people'

Terming the hike in rail fares as "anti-people", former Uttar Pradesh chief minister and BSP chief Mayawati today demanded its immediate rollback.

"Bahujan Samaj Party demands that the rise in railway fares, which have been increased in an arbitrary manner by the UPA government, be withdrawn immediately," she said.

"After hiking the price of petrol, diesel and LPG the UPA government has now raised the fare of railways making travel costlier for poor and middle-class people as they will be the worst effected... Centre has hiked the fare of all the classes which is not in interest of people and BSP demands it to be withdrawn," Mayawati said.

Alleging that the Centre has done "Congressikaran" of the Railways, she said that earlier when the department was with the alliance partners of the UPA it had escaped the wrong economic policies of the Congress.

"But by hiking the fares just month and a half before the budget , it (Congress) has given yet another example of its arbitrariness," she said.

On the brutal killing of two soldiers by Pakistani Army in Poonch sector of Jammu and Kashmir, the BSP chief said that beside the Indian government, Pakistan too needs to take the incident seriously so that problems between the two nations does not escalate.

"I believe that there is a need to take concrete action after going into the details of the incident in Poonch so that such cases do not recur", Mayawati said.

The BSP chief also said that the Centre should extend financial assistance to the family of the soldiers and Ministry of Defence should initiate steps to give jobs to their widows in keeping with their capability.

On law and order situation in UP, she said that a memorandum was handed over to Governor B L Joshi by her party but no action has been taken so far.

On death caused by intense cold, she said that it was the result of the state government's apathy.

"State government only makes announcements there is nothing on the ground," she added.