The National Democratic Alliance on Wednesday hit back at the Union Railway Minister Lalu Prasad accusing him of "politicising" the Godhra carnage issue by ordering a departmental inquiry into the incident in Gujarat.
Within hours of Prasad ordering the inquiry, his predecessor and Janata Dal-United leader Nitish Kumar told reporters that whatever the railway minister has done was "nothing but a political statement" and said his action of "imputing motives" was "totally wrong and irresponsible."
"It is easy to become railway minister but it is difficult to understand the functioning of the ministry," Kumar said sarcastically hitting out at Prasad for the manner in which the railway minister was functioning.
Kumar's comments at the daily briefing of the BJP came soon after the railway minister replied to the discussion on the Railway Budget and sought to impute motives on Kumar as also former Minister of State, Digvijay Singh, for failing to visit Godhra soon after the incident. Singh was also present at the briefing.
Seeking to turn the tables on the Minister, the JD(U) leader sought to know whether Prasad had visited any of the spots where train dacoities had taken place.
Kumar maintained that railways had fulfilled all legal, constitutional and moral responsibilities following the Godhra incident and said that it was up to the local police to investigate the incident.
He said Prasad should understand that any incident or mishap on the railways was investigated by the Commissioner of Railway Safety, which is under the administrative jurisdiction of Civil Aviation Ministry.
"If the Commissioner of Railway Safety does not probe it, no other form of inquiry is constitutionally right," he said.