'Mr Nice' gets the boot: Why Sadananda Gowda got shunted out of Railways

He’d been in office for barely six monthsbefore Sadananda Gowdwas pulled out of the RailwayMinistry and made the Minister for Law and Justice, an important ministry but not as much as his previous posting. But according to reports, Gowda may have been moved out after failing to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ambitious vision for the Indian Railways.

The mild mannered Gowda reportedly ran afoul of Prime Minister Narendra Modi for failing to attract foreign direct investment into the railways and failing to navigate the bureaucracy of Rail Bhavan to push through the government’s agenda.

Despite holding meetings to review projects, the Rail Ministry had reportedly failed to meet the targets set by the Prime Minister’s office which meant that Gowda had little to show as achievements, including a failure to prepare even a road map on how to get FDI into the railways, reports the Economic Times .

Gowda had also failed to push through infrastructure projects or push through the PM’s pet projects like making wi-fi available on trains and stations, which did not go down well with the Prime Minister’s office that wanted it done as soon as possible.

The former railway minister also failed to push through appointments of seven general managers, which the PM-led Appointments Committee of the Cabinet has been finding problems with it, reports the Indian Express.

“The system of the Railway Board, the various departments and the inter-departmental rivalries, it is not easy to manage it. Gowda was not the man for it. We could see that it was easy to take him for a ride,” a unnamed Railway Board official was quoted as saying in the Economic Times.

It also didn’t help that Gowda failed to impress BJP’s IT cell in-charge Arvind Gupta, who had been appointed as an advisor to the Ministry of Railways and had become less visible at the Rail Bhavan over the last few months.