Rollback of fares is PM's prerogative: Mamata Banerjee

NEW DELHI: The rollback in passenger tariff, proposed in the 2012-13 rail budget, was a prerogative of the prime minister, West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee said Monday after meeting Manmohan Singh.

"It was a good meeting... the issue of rollback of passenger fare hike and making party leader Mukul Roy as the new railway minister are the prerogatives of the prime minister," Banerjee told reporters.

Banerjee was accompanied by Trinamool parliamentary party leader Sudip Bandyopadhyay.

The prime minister had said in the Lok Sabha earlier in the day that he had forwarded the resignation of Railway Minister Dinesh Trivedi, a Trinamool MP, to President Pratibha Patil.

Banerjee arrived in the capital Sunday and she said that the hike would put strain on the common man. Her opposition to the proposed hike in passenger fares in the budget forced Trivedi's resignation.