Lalu Prasad boosts railway fortunes, but in-laws try free tripping

Lalu Prasad has now secured the only endorsement that matters in New Delhi on his running of the gargantuan Indian railway network: Sonia Gandhi has said he is doing fine.

Here is the PTI report on it:

Sonia praises Lalu for "new style" to improve Railways

Rae Bareli (UP), Feb 14. (PTI): UPA chairperson and Congress Chief Sonia Gandhi on Tuesday joined the chorus of praise for Railway Minister Lalu Prasad saying he has introduced "new style" to improve the functioning of the Railways.

"Prasad has introduced a new style to improve the Railways functioning. For this everybody is praising him," she said after laying the foundation stone of a Rail Coach factory in her Lok Sabha constituency Rae Bareli in the presence of Prasad and his two deputies - Naranbhai Rathwa and R Velu.

Referring to the UPA Government, Gandhi said she was happy to say that ever since the party-led coalition came to power at the Centre, a new era of economic development has started, which would bring positive changes in the lifestyle of common people across the country.

As far as the Rail Coach Factory here is concerned, the Congress chief said that Railway Minister Prasad is a man of firm commitment and she was fully confident that this project would be fructified soon and provides jobs to youths.

"Lalu Prasad is firm on his words. Whatever he promises, he does it. That is why I hope that this factory will be ready soon and start working and will provide employment to youth here," she said.

Asserting that people gets name for his works, she said similarly, a Government is also remembered for his work.

"I am satisfied that our UPA Government at the Centre was proving to be a Government that works", she said.

But Lalu's in-laws are not really co-operating, it appears. They were caught without proper tickets but to their credit, they did not provide fodder for the media and quickly paid the fines, continuing their journey. The mainstream media is apparently too embarrassed that the in-laws of the illustrious Lalu were caught without proper ticket and so leading newspapers down south have only a single column item in their inside pages.

This is The Hindu's report of the incident from staffer K.Balchand.

Of course, one must conclude with the observation that Lalu Prasad is hopelessly ignorant of how his Railway system is faring in Chennai. To belabour the point to the insensitive Railway bureaucracy, the MRTS system is a ghost line even today because Lalu and his somnolent deputy Velu have no idea what is going on. Perhaps when Lalu has some time left after his MBA lectures, he can visit Chennai and take a ride on the MRTS.

In some stations, if he walks in after dark, he is likely to fall into the ditches and traps that have been left uncovered by the Southern Railway administration, currently headed by General Manager Thomas Varghese.