Differences in Congress over resumption of train services

Differences in the Congress emerged on Monday after Delhi party leader Radhika Khera questioned former finance minister P. Chidambaram for supporting the centre's move to re-start the inter state train services amid the novel coronavirus pandemic.

In a series of tweets, senior Congress leader P. Chidambaram welcomed the government's decision and said, "We welcome the decision of the government to cautiously start operations of inter state passenger trains. The same modest opening should be started with road transport and air transport."

"The only way economic and commercial activity can effectively begin, is to open road, rail and air services for passengers and goods," he said in another tweet.

However, his views were opposed within the party as Congress media coordinator Khera took to Twitter and wrote, "Sir, although we have to learn to live with Covid-19, we also need to see that the government has failed to control things. We have seen the biggest spike in cases so far today 4,213. We need to learn from faults of other nations and wait for the curve to flatten before going towards normalcy."

Her remarks came as India recorded the highest single day spike in cases of Covid-19. On Monday 4,213 fresh cases were reported with 97 deaths in the last 24 hours.

The differences in the Congress came to the fore a day after the Railway Ministry announced to run a pair of 15 air conditioned trains from May 12 from New Delhi to several cities.

This is not the first time Khera has opposed the senior party leader. After the 2020 Delhi assembly election rout, Khera had slammed Maharashtra Congress leader Milind Deora for congratulating Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) for a massive victory in the national capital.

Khera, who unsuccessfully contested from Janakpuri assembly seat, criticised Deora and wrote on Twitter, "As a young first time contestant, I find this extremely disappointing from our senior leaders, who instead of encouraging our own party to do better are busy patting AAP's back! Food for thought: Delhi has run a surplus since 1994, this peaked in 2011 under Sheila (Dikshit) Ji."

Shramistha Mukherjee, daughter of former President Pranab Mukherjee was the first to oppose Chidambaram for praising AAP after the Delhi assembly poll results.