My duty to get budget passed, will not run away: Trivedi

Railway Minister Dinesh Trivedi said today that he would resign the moment the West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee or the Prime Minister asked him to quit.

The minister said that nobody has asked for his resignation, but if Mamata Banerjee or the Prime Minister did he would quit. Trivedi said, “If my leader asks me, I will resign.”

Trivedi said, “It is my duty to get the Rail Budget passed and I will not run away from it.”

Banerjee has written to the Prime Minister seeking the removal of Trivedi, who presented the rail budget on Wednesday and proposed to hike passenger fares disregarding the party’s diktat .

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said the government will “consider” replacing Dinesh Trivedi with Mukul Roy, as demanded by Mamata, if such a situation develops.

When asked when he would consider replacing Trivedi after the demand made by Banerjee, Singh said,“Well, if anything like this develops, we will consider it.”

Trivedi had presented his first railway budget on Wednesday and for the first time in close to decade hiked passenger fares. The budget is still to be passed by Parliament and there were reports earlier today that Trivedi had resigned.