Siddaramaiah: 'Increase in train fares is a New Year gift from PM Modi'

Karnataka Congress leer Siddaramaiah on Wednesday took a jibe at Prime Minister Narendra Modi over recent hike in railway fare, calling it PM's "New Year gift" to common people. Siddaramaiah furr said that hike would make a "dent" in potential development of transport services.  former CM of Karnataka suggested  government to maintain values of Constitution as a gift to people. 

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Siddaramaiah was referring to ongoing agitation of people in Karnataka state and across county against Citizenship law. Karnataka has witnessed large-scale protests and violence in Magaluru over contentious law. Several opposition leers especially Congress party is strongly opposing Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). 

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Mangaluru protests

On December 19th, in Bunder area of Mangaluru, protests that took place against CAA even as section 144 was imposed, took a violent turn and between 3 pm and 6 pm, police also fired at protestors, leing to death of two civilians. A set of videos that have emerged from CCTV cameras in vicinity show that a large number of stones, mortars were brought in tempos and autos by section of protestors.

foot also shows men with ir face covered turning CCTV cameras away, throwing stones at m and even damaging m with bamboo sticks. Scores of protestors throwing stones and even blocking ro to be taken by police reinforcement teams have been captured on tape.

Train fares hiked

On New Year's eve, railways anunced fare hike to be effective from January 1, 2020. With this,  railways reportedly expects to generate an ditional Rs 2,300 crore annual revenue. last such hike was anunced in 2014-2015 when fares of all classes of trains were raised by 14.2 per cent and freight charges by 6.5 per cent.

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