Chandy's travel on Kochi Metro causes chaos

Kochi: Chaos prevailed at two Kochi metro stations on Tuesday evening as hundreds of Congress workers virtually took over the premises to enable former Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy to travel on the metro that opened for the public a day earlier.

The Congress activists flocked to the stations to lodge their protest against the lack of invitation to Chandy on Saturday when Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated Kerala's first metro.

In the process, commuters at the Aluva station where Chandy boarded the train and at the Palarivatom station where he alighted were put into great trouble, officials and witnesses said.

A Kochi Metro official told IANS on the condition of anonymity that the metro should be kept out of political protests.

"The two stations were overflowing with Congress activists who came with Chandy. Our colleagues did their best to keep the ordinary people who had come to board the train in the waiting area till the Congress workers left. Two trains left packed with Congress workers," the official said.

Each train can accommodate up to 970 passengers. A train departs Aluva station every nine minutes to Palarivatom, located 13 km away. The commuting time is 20 minutes.

Such was the rush at Aluva that Chandy himself could board only the second train after entering the metro station. Opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala managed to get into the first train.

The Congress protest turned out to be a nightmare for ordinary people.

At Palarivatom station, the crowd which came to receive Chandy was so massive that Congress legislators found it difficult to bring him out to his jeep.