'Extremely competent': Ex-CEA K Subramanian backs Ashwini Vaishnaw amid resignation demand over Balasore train tragedy 

Former Chief Economic Advisor Krishnamurthy Subramanian on Monday backed Ashwini Vaishnaw, who has come under massive pressure over one of the deadliest train accidents in Odisha's Balasore. There have been demands for his resignation for the accident, that left 275 dead and over 1,100 injured. The tragedy happened after Coromandel Express collided with a goods train near the Bahanaga Bazar railway station in Balasore. 

Former Congress chief Rahul Gandhi on Sunday demanded Vaishnaw's resignation saying the Centre cannot run away from taking responsibility for such a painful accident. "No accountability even after 270+ deaths! The Modi government cannot run away from taking responsibility for such a painful accident. The Prime Minister should immediately seek the resignation of the Railway Minister!"

However, Subramanian today said that maturity demands that people learn to hold their leaders accountable for outcomes that stem from their actions, not the outcomes that stem from "inherited actions". "Safety of Railway Travel is an example where the contribution of the latter is far, far more than the former," he wrote in a detailed post on Twitter.

The former CEA further said that no one is super-human to be able to undo the cumulative damage caused by "inherited actions of about 75 years" through one's own actions in a fraction of that time period (of 75 years). He said Vaishnaw should be given a few more years to be able to undo the cumulative damage caused over 75 years. 

"Maturity demands that we do not pin blame by saying “you have been the leader for the last 15 (or xyz) months. Why haven't you undone the cumulative damage of inaction/ poor action over 75 years?" he said.

Subramanian hailed Vaishnaw, who took over in July 2021, for the work he is doing for the railway sector. "Let’s ask ourselves who will benefit the most from an extremely competent professional like @AshwiniVaishnaw doing good work for the nation? Certainly NOT those with vested interests that get hurt from such work," the former CEA said.

The BJP on Sunday hit back at the opposition parties that were asking for the resignation of Vaishnaw. BJP's IT Cell head Amit Malviya asked these parties to not politicise the tragic train accident and said the track record of the Congress-led UPA government's railway ministers was nothing short of a disaster.

"Stop politicising the unfortunate Balasore tragedy because the track record of railway ministers, under the UPA, to put it mildly, was nothing short of disaster," he said. Malviya then listed some accidents that happened during other railway ministers' tenure. Under Mamata Banerjee as railway minister, 1,451 people died in 54 cases of collisions and 839 incidents of train derailments, he said.

The death toll was 1,159 when Lalu Yadav was the minister while the corresponding figure for Nitish Kumar was 1,527. Yadav was the minister in the first term of the UPA government while Kumar was at the helm during the NDA government headed by Atal Bihari Vajpayee. This is the report card of those demanding resignation, Malviya said.