Dinesh Trivedi resigns as India railway minister

New Delhi/Kolkata, Mar 19 (PTI) Dinesh Trivedi resigned as India's Railway Minister Sunday evening bringing an end to a five-day drama after he incurred the wrath of his Trinamool Congress party for hiking passenger fares in the country's Railway Budget. Trivedi (61) told reporters in Delhi that he had called his party Trinamool Congress Mamata Banerjee and and that she told him "that it was the party's decision that I must step down and since the party, Trinamool Congress, was instrumental in making me the Railway Minister and Mamata Banerjee's instructions were very clear that it is the party which has decided and like a soldier I must obey the party's discipline. That is the way I have been trained." This will be the first case of a minister being forced to resign just after the presentation of his budget, that too by his own party upset over budget proposals. Next to Congress party, Trinamool Congress is the second largest component in the ruling Indian United Progressive Alliance coalition. The party was opposed to any hike in the railway fares. In his 2012-13 railway budget presented in Parliament on March 14 Trivedi did just that. Trivedi's decision is understood to have come after a word from the Indian Prime Minister's Office to him to quit. The Congress leadership and the Prime Minister had assured Mamata that her demand for replacing Trivedi will be acceded after the presentation of the general budget on Friday last. In his virtual farewell comments, Trivedi said, "I must thank the party leader Mamata Banerjee and the entire cabinet and Prime Minister Manmohan Singhji for giving me this opportunity. "I tried my level best to do whatever little I could do and in the interest of the Railways and in the interest of the country. I am very very happy. I must take this opportunity to thank the Railway Board and my 14 lakh (1.4 million) employees of the rail parivar." PTI