Five Metro workers and an engineer were killed and 15 injured after a launching girder gave way at a construction site near Zamrudpur in south Delhi this morning. DMRC Managing Director E Sreedharan resigned within hours taking moral responsibility, but Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit rejected the offer.

The septuagenarian Metro chief flew back from outside Delhi following the accident and, after a brief inspection of the site, made a dramatic announcement of his resignation at a news conference.

“I am facing you with a great deal of pain and remorse,” Sreedharan said. “I take full moral responsibility of today’s incident and thereby resign. I have sent my resignation letter to the Chief Minister and the Lieutenant Governor.”

“Before I entered this chamber, I took the decision to resign and all my senior colleagues advised me not to take this decision. I normally don’t go against their advice, but this time I have asked them not to interfere.”

Late in the evening, Dikshit announced, “We have decided not to accept the resignation of E Sreedharan.”

PTI quoted an unnamed top official as saying, “At this time, we cannot let him go. That is why it was decided not to accept his resignation. He is a person of integrity.”

The chief minister’s principal secretary PK Tripathy had earlier said that Sreedharan was a “very emotional person”, and that the government would not take a “hasty decision” on the issue. A spokesman for the L-G had said the decision on accepting his resignation would have to be taken “at a political level”.

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