CPI floor leader in Rajya Sabha P Sandosh Kumar on Monday submitted a breach of privilege motion against Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, accusing him of misleading the House by providing figures contradictory to the ministry's own data submitted earlier to the House.

According to a statement issued by the CPI, the ministry, in response to a question raised by CPI MP P P Suneer on safety of railway workers, provided the number of 65 deaths and 569 injuries from 2014-15 to 2023-24, a period of 10 years.

However, in an earlier reply in Rajya Sabha on December 8, 2023, the ministry said that 361 railway workers died due to train accidents during maintenance work on rail tracks in the last five years (from 2019-20 to 27.11.2023), the statement said. The CPI said the ministry's reply on Monday sharply contradict the figures provided by it earlier in the Rajya Sabha.

The party said in a sub-question of the raised question, Suneer had asked for the zone-wise details of the “number of deaths and injuries involving railway personnel, including regular employees, contractual workers and outsourced workforce, during construction, maintenance, inspection or coupling of trains in the last three years”.

"The ministry's reply of 65 deaths is in sharp contradiction to their own admission in the Rajya Sabha made in December 2023," the CPI said.  It said according to the railway ministry's own data provided in the Rajya Sabha in response to unstarred question number 764 by A A Rahim, answered on December 8, 2023, the ministry gave the number of railway workers who died due to train accidents during maintenance work on railway tracks in the last five years (from 2019-20 to 27.11.2023) as 361.