On June 2, 2023, three Indian Railways trains were involved in one of the rail disasters in decades. The unfortunate train accident in Odisha's Balasore on Friday left at least 278 dead and over 1,000 injured. The accident involved Bengaluru-Howrah Superfast Express, the Coromandel Express and the goods train on three separate tracks at Bahanaga Bazar Station in the Balasore district. As many as 17 coaches of these two passenger trains were derailed and severely damaged in the deadly accident. Following the same, Congress levelled allegations against the Railways saying the ticket cancellations have increased due to the incident.
Congress leader and former union minister Bhakta Charan Das at a press conference on Monday claimed thousands of people have cancelled their tickets after the accident and said they were not feeling safe to travel. "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 in the train is not safe," Das said, speaking in Hindi.
This is factually incorrect. 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. https://t.co/tn85n03WPn
— IRCTC (@IRCTCofficial) June 6, 2023
The Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation Ltd (IRCTC), which provides railway ticketing services, has now denied Congress' claims that thousands of Indians cancelled their tickets. "This is factually incorrect. 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 tweeted Tuesday.
IRCTC said that the cancellations have not increased, rather decreased from 7.7 lakh on June 1, 2023 to 7.5 lakh on June 3, 2023, a day after the crash took place in Odisha.
