As Chhath Puja, one of the most important festival for people of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, starts approaching from Monday, thousands of migrant workers as well as families settled in different parts of the country always struggle to secure train tickets to their hometowns. Every year when the festival arrives, these people face severe hardship due to limited number of trains. Despite repeated representations to the Ministry of Railways, no permanent solution has been offered.
Many daily wage workers, who earn between Rs. 500 and Rs. 700 a day, say the special trains which have been introduced by the Indian Railways during the festive season are very costly and take longer than regular services.
Lalu Prasad Yadav, the former Chief Minister of Bihar, has expressed his concern on this issue. He has accused the Centre on Saturday (October 25, 2025) for not running sufficient Bihar-bound trains to facilitate passengers to come to their native place during the Chhath Puja. Besides, Lalu Prasad said these people were “forced to travel in inhumane conditions.”
The former Chief Minister has shared a video on social media platform, showing how passengers are travelling to Bihar in a packed train for the festival.
The RJD supermo has claimed in a post on X, “The uncrowded king of lies and the leader of empty promises had boosted that out of the country’s total 13,198 trains, 12,000 would be operated for Bihar on occasion of Chhath festival. This, too, turned out to be a blatant lie. My fellow Biharis are forced to travel in trains in an inhumane manner.“
