On Rahul Gandhi’s track,Raj takes a local train to Dadar

Taking a dig at AICC general secretary Rahul Gandhi,who had taken a local last year,Thackeray said: “I did not want to do any stunt. Unlike him,who had stopped to withdraw money from an ATM to buy tickets,I had money with me to buy my ticket. More importantly,travelling in the train is much easier; it took me 35 minutes to travel from Dombivili to Dadar. In future,if there is rush I will use the train regularly.”

He also said overcrowding in trains was a major reason for bad management. “I last took the local around 25 years ago when I was in college. Those days I used to commute from Bandra to CST. The trains were crowded then and they are crowded now despite increasing the space. There is burden on infrastructure and all the problems boil down to migration.”

The MNS president’s journey also caused chaos at the station. The first class compartment was packed with MNS workers and journalists. Mahim and Parel MLAs Nitin Sardesai and Bala Nandgaonkar also accompanied him. As the crowd swelled at Thane,Thackeray directed the party workers from Dombivili to get down at Thane and return. To avoid the same problem at Dadar,Thackeray left the station premises from the east side to Krishna Kunj, his residence at Shivaji Park in Dadar east.

“We had deployed a police sub-inspector from Dombivili to Dadar to avoid any law and order situation. He also left the station from platform no 6 adjoining the road at Dadar instead of taking the bust FOB which also gave us some relief,” said a police officer.

Interestingly,Thackeray’s association with the railways has always been controversial. He first hogged limelight when the Bhartiya Vidyarthi Sena (BVS) he headed while he was in the Shiv Sena bashed North Indians who had come to Kalyan for appearing for the railway recruitment exams.