The Congress government in Telangana has hit out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi for suggesting that the ridership of Hyderabad Metro was affected by its free bus travel scheme for women.

The state’s transport minister Ponnam Prabhakar today said the Prime Minister was actually lowering the stature of his office by relating the low ridership on the Metro to the free bus scheme for women initiated by the Congress government.

Recently, in an interview with a television channel the Prime Minister had said “You build a metro in a city and then to win elections in the same city you promise free bus rides to women. This means you are taking away 50 per cent of your metro passengers.”

Ponnam Prabhakar said, “It is unfortunate that a person at the Prime Minister’s level was not able to digest the free bus travel for women.” The Prime Minister’s comment came after the L&T had commented that it was considering exiting from Hyderabad Metro and blamed the free travel scheme for low traffic. Critics had slammed L&T for linking the two when the company had been considering disinvestment to reduce its debt burden for quite some time.

“Traveling in RTC buses has nothing to do with ridership in Metro.The Metro sector is separate… We are still appealing to increase the number of bogies for the Metro trains. Was the Prime Minister thinking about political gain?” wondered the transport minister.

He added that it does not befit the Prime Minister to speak about such small issues. Tamil Nadu’s IT minister Dr P Thiaga Rajan also jumped into the debate and reminded that the bus and Metro services were not direct substitutes but complimentary before veering into the subject of Chennai Metro Phase II.

The Hyderabad Metro is struggling with overcrowding during peak hours and there has been talks about increasing the coaches to tackle peak hour rush. The free bus travel scheme has been a boon for women from economically backward classes.

However, political parties have criticised it citing various reasons. The BRS has said that it has led to suicides among autorickshaw drivers. Meanwhile, the transport minister said they will increase the routes and the number of buses plying.