Amid growing calls seeking the resignation of Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, Rahul Gandhi, who is on a 10-trip in the US, slammed Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP, stating they always blame somebody else in the past for their failures.
Gandhi, who is on a visit to the US, was addressing the members of the Indian diaspora in the Javits Centre here. The meeting observed a 60-second silence in respect of those who died in the Odisha train accident.
"I remember a train accident when the Congress was in power. The Congress did not get up and say 'now it is the fault of the British that the train has crashed'. The Congress minister said 'it's my responsibility and I'm resigning'. So this is the problem we have back home, we make excuses and we are not accepting the reality we are faced with," Gandhi said, without naming the Congress minister.
He said the BJP and the RSS are incapable of looking into the future.
"He (Prime Minister Narendra Modi) is trying to drive the car...the Indian car and he looks in the rear-view mirror. Then he does not understand why this car is crashing, not moving forward. And it's the same idea with the BJP, with the RSS. All of them. You listen to the ministers, you listen to the prime minister. You will never find them talking about the future. They only talk about the past," he said.
"The BJP and the RSS are incapable of looking into the future. They never talk about the future; they only talk about the past. And they will always blame somebody else for the past," he said.
The Congress also sharpened its claws against the Prime Minister. While seeking Vaishnaw's resignation, the party said Prime Minister Narendra Modi should accept part of the responsibility for creating an "all-is-well facade" even as the critical infrastructure of the Indian Railway "languishes in neglect".
The party asked whether Modi will take responsibility for the "deadliest rail tragedy". It also asked who is responsible for ignoring the warnings and suggestions of experts, the parliamentary committee and CAG report.
Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge alleged that Modi was busy flagging off trains while not paying attention to railway safety. He called for fixing accountability of all posts from top to bottom to prevent such incidents in future.
Congress MP Shaktisinh Gohil and AICC's publicity and media department head Pawan Khera too alleged that the Odisha rail tragedy was a "man-made devastation caused by "utter negligence, serious lapses in the system, incompetence, and a narcissistic sense of know-it-all attitude of the Modi government".
Khera said the prime minister has a "Kavach" which no other PM had, protecting him from public scrutiny and television debates. He urged the media to not provide that shield to the PM. "This 'Kavach' does not save rail passengers but only your (PM's) image," Khera said.
Prime Minister Modi, who has announced that the guilty would be punished, must first start with his railway minister, Khera said.
"Unequivocally and unambiguously, we demand the resignation of the Union Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw. Nothing short of it," he said.
"Resignation means taking responsibility on moral grounds, here there is neither responsibility nor morals, do you think any resignation would come? We don't know whom we should ask for resignation.
"The person who goes to inaugurate even small stations or the one who has been busy since yesterday morning in publicity. Modi ji, you decide whose resignation you want. But now the nation expects that you seek the resignation of your rail minister the way Lal Bahadur Shastri, Nitish Kumar and Madhavrao Scindia resigned," Khera said.