The Minister of Transport and Sustainable Mobility, Óscar Puente, has accused the PP leader, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, of applying a "double standard" and has urged comparing his current statements with those he made a few months ago regarding the Angrois disaster.
In an interview on the program 'Malas Lenguas' on 'TVE', Puente referred to Feijóo's words this Friday, when he stated that "whoever has failed in their duty must bear it."
"In one case the responsibility falls on a worker and in the present one it falls on the minister," argued the head of Transport, who described this situation as an "astonishing difference in criteria."
Regarding the statements of Santiago Abascal, who addressed him as "Óscar Muerte," Puente reproached him for heading the only party that "has refused to suspend the election campaign," something that, in his view, shows a "total lack of respect for the victims."
In this way, the minister specified that the "ordeal" he referred to in this Friday's press conference consists of having to "keep listening to this man say the nonsense he says, the insults he hurls, and the attacks of a personal nature."
"I do not think that in any civilized country in the world a transport accident would be treated as a murder or a deliberate action by anyone," he maintained, reproaching those who spread that narrative for placing themselves in the "post-Francoism or directly in Francoism" by equating an accident with a murder.
He denies having singled out specific workers
When asked about the criticism from the Federal Railway Sector Union of the CGT (SFF-CGT), which denounced a "singling out" of the staff at the Atocha Control Center, Puente rejected having "blamed anyone specifically."
He also responded to the candidates of Podemos and Frente amplio for the general elections of 29N, Irene Montero and Ada Colau, who described it as "inadmissible and indecent" that attention was focused only on the worker. In response, the minister replied that both leaders "are mistaken."
He considered it "surprising" that quick information is demanded and, later, "rejected" when the data "do not match what is desired," stressing that his action has been limited to "setting out facts" supported by scientific evidence, in the full audio recordings from the control center and in the technical protocols.
In this context, he has emphasized that the priority, both technical and political, must be to incorporate into the system all the necessary preventive and corrective mechanisms to prevent similar failures from happening again.
Lastly, when asked about the electoral campaign, Puente has assured that at this moment he is focused "exclusively on the accident, on how to understand it and on how to try to make sure it does not happen again", insisting that the campaign does not concern him "at this moment" and that he does not find himself in the right mood to face it.