Senior Congress Mallikarjun Kharge on Monday flayed the Modi government for merging the Rail Budget with the Union Budget, adding that in doing so, the Centre was “trying to weaken the autonomy of the Railways.”

Participating in a discussion in the Lok Sabha on the motion of thanks on the President’s speech to the joint sitting of Parliament on January 31, the former Railway Minister in the UPA -II Cabinet, decried the government’s move to “hand over the Railways to the Finance Department.”

“Railways is a public service, it is not a commercial enterprise with the only objective of making profits. By making it go to the Finance Department with a begging bowl, you are trying to weaken its autonomy,” said Kharge in his one-and-a half hour speech.

Admitting that the Railways were running losses, Kharge said: “Do you cut off your nose, when you get a cold?” adding that on the one hand, the Finance Minister had allocated ₹10,000 crore for the bullet train, which was “okay for clapping” , but on the other, he did not mention anything about land acquisition for this project, which was announced two-and-a half years ago.

He said the Finance Minister also failed to mention 62 derailments last year, which is 70 per cent higher than the previous year.

Citing figures, the Congress leader also questioned the government’s claims on “doubling” allocation for the SC/ST sub-plans, as also MGNREGA allocation, farmer suicides and the haste in announcing demonetisation and its shoddy implementation that hit the poor the most.

Kharge said to run the rural job scheme, MGNREGA, the least that was required keeping in mind the population was ₹90,000 crore. “But you have failed MGNREGA by allocating ₹48,000 crore, claiming that it is higher than last year.”

Citing more figures, Kharge said allocation for MGNREGA in 2014-15 was 1.98 per cent of the total Budget, 2.09 per cent of the total Budget in 2015-16, 2.36 per cent of the total Budget in 2016-17, and now this has gone down to 2.24 per cent of the overall Budget.

On demonetisation, he said: “Panic spread after the Prime Minster announced the withdrawal of 86.5 per cent of the currency in circulation, leading to the death of 125 people who were standing in queues to “withdraw their own money”, adding that there was “not even a mention or tribute in this House. The Prime Minister should have at least apologised.”

Prime Minister Narendra Modi sat through Kharge’s entire speech.

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