BJP hails white paper on Indian Railways financial status - India News and Travel Times Provides India-centric and other News and Features

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), on Friday welcomed the white paper regarding the financial status of the Indian Railways which was presented in the parliament. Speaking to the media, party spokesperson Shahnawaz Hussain, said his party would study the white paper in detail and ascertain if Lalu Prasad Yadav had indulged in jugglery of figures to manipulate the profit. His contention was that Yadav also happened to be the Railway Minister during the first regime of Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) while Mamata Banerjee is also a minister in the successive UPA government. "Laluji used to say that Railways made a profit of rupees 90,000 crore during his tenure. It was jugglery with figures. He was Railway Minister in the UPA one government headed by Manmohan Singh. If Railway Minister of UPA-two has brought out a white paper against the Railways Minister of UPA-one, we will study it," Hussain said. Meanwhile, reacting to the white paper, former Railway Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav said his figures of profit were not been challenged in the white paper. "I am stating that figure (profit) of rupees 90,000 crore (rupees 900 billion that I quoted in Parliament has not been challenged by this white paper," noted Lalu Prasad. Yadav had claimed that he turned a loss making venture into a profitable one during his tenure between 2004 and 2009.