The Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation took to Twitter on Sunday to counter Congress’ claim, suggesting that the Gautam Adani-led Adani Group’s takeover of ticketing platform Trainman could result in the takeover of the IRCTC.
The IRCTC’s statement came after Congress general secretary in-charge of communication, Jairam Ramesh, tagged a media report regarding the Adani Group’s takeover of Trainman. “First compete with IRCTC… then take over,” he captioned the post.
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Responding to the remark, the IRCTC took to Twitter to clarify that any change in stake in Trainman, one of the 32 authorised B2C partners of the IRCTC, would make no difference to the IRCTC.
“This is a misleading statement. Trainman is one of the 32 authorized B2C (Business to Customer) partners of IRCTC. Changing the stake won’t make any difference. All integration and operations will continue to be done through IRCTC. It will only complement IRCTC and is not a threat or challenge to IRCTC,” the Railways body said.
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The deal, marking the first foray by the Adani Enterprises into the railways sector, saw Adani Adani Digital Labs, its wholly owned subsidiary, sign a share purchase agreement for the acquisition of 100 per cent stake in the online train ticket booking platform Trainman.
Trainman was founded by IIT-Roorkee graduates Vineet Chirania and Karan Kumar as a startup for all train ticket-related issues in 2011 to book train tickets, check live running status and the PNR status.