IRCTC Refutes Congress’ Claim Of Ticket Cancellations After Odisha Train Accident

The Indian Railways on Tuesday refuted the claim made by a Congress leader that thousands of people have cancelled their train tickets after the deadly train crash in Odisha's Balasore.

At a press conference, Congress leader Bhakta Charan Das had claimed that thousands of people have canceled their tickets after the accident.

"Such a train accident has never happened in the past. Hundreds of people lost their lives and more than a thousand people were injured. This incident has hurt everyone. Thousands of people have canceled their tickets after the accident. They feel that traveling on the train is not safe," said Bhakta Charan Das.

"Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge by writing a letter, has attracted the attention of the Government of India on many important things. In this letter, Kharge questioned the reason for the Railway Budget merger with the General Budget in 2017-18. The government is saying that the guilty will be punished. The question is- Who is to blame?," he asked.

"The country's attention is being diverted in the name of the CBI probe. It has been revealed in the CAG report how many times train accidents have happened since 2017. Neither the Prime Minister nor the Railway Minister is paying attention to this," he added.

However, the Indian Railways termed the claim as factually incorrect and presented the data on ticket booking and cancellation after the deadly crash on Friday, May 2.

"Cancellations have not increased. On the contrary, cancellations have reduced from 7.7 Lakh on 01.06.23 to 7.5 Lakh on 03.06.23," IRCTC said in its tweet.

At least 278 people were killed and 1,000 were injured after a speeding Coromandel Express crashed into a stationary goods train. A few coaches of Coromandel toppled over the last few coaches of the Bengaluru-Howrah Express which was passing by at the same time.

The railway authorities are looking into possible human error, signal failure and other possible causes behind the three-train crash.