Forget Bullet Trains, Focus On Existing Ones: BJP Leader To Modi

Senior BJP leader Laxmi Kanta Chawla’s angry video rant, attacking Narendra Modi and Railway Minister Piyush Goyal for the poor condition of Indian Railways is being shared widely on social media.

In the video recorded on 22 December on board the Saryu-Yamuna Express, Punjab BJP leader Laxmi Kanta Chawla asks Modi to “forget about bullet trains and focus on the ones that are already running.”

Chawla, who was travelling from Amritsar to Ayodhya, explains how the train was delayed by 9 hours and there are no provisions for food on board the train.

Here is part 2 of the video BJP leader @laxmi_chawla made aboard the Saryu-Yamuna train while on her way from Amritsar to Ayodhya.
" It would be better if you travel in these trains like a common man @PiyushGoyal ji, " she says. pic.twitter.com/EXOc6TkAjh

— Chitleen K Sethi (@ChitleenKSethi) December 24, 2018

“Modiji, take pity on us common people,” Chawla is seen saying.

“The doors are broken, toilet seats are broken and the train changed routes without intimating the travellers. There is no one to give us information on why the train is running late. What will be the condition of the travellers who are spending 10 hours extra on a train that doesn’t provide food? So, please forget about bullet trains and focus on the ones that are already running.”

Laxmi Kanta Chawla, Senior BJP Leader

Shared on Twitter by Chitleen K Sethi who is a journalist with The Print, the two-part video also shows the BJP leader taking a dig at the condition of travellers on railway stations that are not equipped with decent waiting rooms.

“In this biting cold, people are left on railway platforms, Modiji, Piyush Goyal ji,” Chawla says. “And we have tried the railway helpline that you flash on TV screens, along with dropping mails to Piyush Goyal. But there is no one to listen to us.”

The leader, who headed the ministries of health and social welfare, asks Narendra Modi and Piyush Goyal to travel like ordinary citizens on Indian trains to understand the difficulties they have to face.

“Maybe Shatabdi and Rajdhani are exemplary. But they are for the wealthy. What will you do about the trains that cater to the working class, the farmers and soldiers?” she asks.

Chawla also talked about the unchecked bribery that happens on trains in the name of reservation.

“No one who travels by train in India will feel that acche din are here. I don’t know whose acche din have come. It is not of the common man and definitely not of Indian Railways,” the leader says in the video.