The Congress on Wednesday, 9 September took a swipe at railway minister Ashwini Vaishnaw over the revamped IRCTC website, amid renewed complaints from passengers that the platform is struggling during peak booking hours.
In a video post on social media, the party wrote one line of accompanying Hindi text to say, ‘He can only make reels’, referring to Vaishnaw’s penchant for frequently posting social media reels.
The attack comes days after the start of Diwali 2026 bookings, when passengers reported that the IRCTC website, its new beta version and the RailOne app were hit by high-load problems around the 8.00 am opening of reservations. The problems reportedly persisted for about 50 minutes on Monday and Tuesday, with users complaining that they were unable to complete bookings and that many trains quickly moved to the waitlist.
The episode is particularly embarrassing for Vaishnaw because the new IRCTC website was launched after he personally intervened following complaints from students at MNIT Jaipur. During an interaction in June, students flagged problems with the existing platform, including slow speeds, CAPTCHA hurdles and crashes during Tatkal bookings. Vaishnaw then promised that a revamped website would be ready by 15 July.
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