Bahujan Samaj Party chief Kanshi Ram, the mentor of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati, created a ruckus at the Lucknow railway station on Tuesday night.
The BSP chief had gone there to see off party volunteers who had come on Monday to participate in the 'Vishal Pardafash Maha Rally' organised by Mayawati.
The volunteers, who were from Maharashtra, were to return by a special train hired by the BSP.
After the rally was over, the volunteers were informed over the public address system that the train would depart from platform 6 at 1900 IST on Tuesday.
However, Lucknow district officials asked the railway authorities to park the train at platform 1, so that Kanshi Ram did not have to walk much.
But this information was not passed on to the volunteers and they refused to budge from platform 6, where the train was parked at that time. Later, they boarded the train and left for Maharashtra.
On his arrival, a livid Kanshi Ram asked the officials: "How dare you start the train when you know that I have to come here to see my people off?"
He also reprimanded them for not parking the train on platform 1.
When told about the order of the district officials and the reaction of his party workers, he fired District Magistrate Navneet Sehgal.
"I will tell Mayawati and get you thrown out of this chair," he said. "You are a useless man and not capable of doing anything."
The railway officials were then told to provide another train, as Kanshi Ram was accompanied by over 1000 Mumbai-bound volunteers.
The officials tried to explain to him that it was difficult to arrange for a train at such a short notice. They also told him that the earlier train had carried over 4,500 passengers as against its capacity of 1800.
But the BSP chief refused to budge. It took hours for the officials to convince him that the only option was to add three coaches to the Mumbai-bound Kushinagar Express.
The BSP chief left only after the Kushinagar Express, carrying the 1000-odd volunteers, departed at 0230 IST, two hours behind schedule.
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